The Equation
by littleredtovette
Summary: A story about two people drawn together by forces stronger than fate. Who fall in love Despite, and have to fight for that love Because. It's a story about two loves - one strong enough to break the world, and one strong enough to heal it. Contains made-up theories of time travel and alternate universes. Leaving the T rating, but Part 2 will carry M warnings.
1. Chapter 1

_Hi ~waves awkwardly~_

 _So I know this story is a little out there for Vauseman but the idea came to me in a dream and even though I have only snippets to work with, I am really curious to see where it can lead. Here is the first chapter. Let me know if it's something you would like to read more of or not. Thanks!_

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 **The Equation – Chapter 1**

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 **Friday, May 24th, 2013**

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The fingers on Piper's one hand swept through a melody only she could hear, on a piano only she knew was there. To anyone else who might be looking, she'd resemble a young woman nervously drumming her fingers on a table. She'd tried to be cool and collected. Normal. Like all the other normal people waiting in there with her. But three minutes is a long time to keep up that kind of guard. She always knew being inconspicuous was hard work, but with stakes this high, and in a place like this…

She'd taken the bus. It made a long trip even longer but there was less chance of being followed that way. Piper preferred those odds. Complete secrecy had never been more important than it was now. If the wrong person so much as guessed what she was about to do she might as well personally sign both their death certificates. No. Last resorts have a good track record. They work out more often than not. She'd weighed the odds. She'd plotted every scenario. As far as last resorts go, this one was her best hope.

She looked around, hoping to find some kind of distraction in people-watching. It usually helped. Now it just made her feel even more out of place in her faded blue jeans and even more faded hoodie. Most of the people in there looked like they made some kind of an effort before showing up. Slacks, skirt, skirt, tie, sundress… Piper gave up and turned her attention back to the metal detector arching the empty doorway. No movement. She glanced up at the clock hanging on the wall just above the door. Two minutes to go. Her foot joined the symphony in her head, tapping out a rhythm that made her knee jump in time.

The hushed murmurs of people waiting may as well not have existed for all it affected her. It was the ticking of that cheap wall clock that burrowed into Piper's ears. _You will be contacted with further instructions in 48 hours_ the last message had read before disappearing from her computer screen as suddenly as it had shown up. She'd tried every trick up her sleeve to find its source. Untraceable. And for her that was saying something. The last time she'd been stumped by a more superior program she still had some of her baby teeth. 48 hours. That was nearly ten hours ago, she thought with a sinking feeling.

Fidgety fingers picked at the large rectangle sticker on her jacket. _Visitor_ was written – black marker against white - in neat block letters. The man who wrote it hadn't clipped his fingernails in a while. A wide orange band ran across the bottom of the sticker, over which the letters DOJ were printed in bold white ink. Not yet ten minutes since it was stuck on her and it was already peeling at the top left corner. Subpar glue – which wouldn't be surprising – or hoodie fabric incompatible with stickers. The last was unthinkable. Everything stuck to hoodie fabric, just ask every piece of fluff and strand of cat hair in the history of the world. The first was easy to fathom. This place wasn't exactly known for splashing out on high quality resources. But delusional was something Piper Chapman was not and lying to herself was a practice she tried not to partake in too often. She knew the curling was most likely due to her constant picking at it. She lowered her hands again, this time resting them on the table. No fidgeting. No invisible piano playing. Like normal people. If Carol could see me now, was her last thought before a loud, ear-piercing buzzer rang out, making her jump in her seat. It was time.

The air around her filled up with heightened anticipation and she could feel that hers weren't the only set of eyes now trained on the metal detector arch. Grateful for something to do other than wait. Soon enough bodies started filing through it, like a formal procession of prisoners. All dressed in the same striking orange, none looking at all the same. Round, flat, thin, short, muscles, no muscles, tattoos up the wazoo, short, no hair, thin, too much hair, medium, short, tall- … Tall. Piper swallowed. Google Images did no justice and three years of prison life is apparently just the thing for perfect skin. She quickly tucked a strand of her blonde hair behind her ear, trying to make it look natural, thinking what she'd look like if it were all black instead.

"You're Chapman?"

The tall woman had a low voice, with an edge of throatiness to it that seemed to rise up from somewhere deep and mysterious, travel up her long neck, out perfectly full lips, to crawl down the spine of anyone around and make the tiny hairs on the back of their necks stand up. Anyone around, or maybe it was just her. Piper swallowed again and nodded, shooting furtive glances around the room to see whether their meeting had any unwanted audiences. It didn't. When she looked back to the woman she found herself the subject of her curious interest as she studied Piper. Long enough to make her feel uncomfortable, to make her look away, and only once she accomplished that did she pull out the chair opposite her and sit down. Piper chose that same moment to look back up, and watched Alex Vause take her seat, a quiet confidence in even the smallest gesture. She was tall and slender and yet, for all her limbs, embodied a kind of grace that had Piper rapt. The simple act of sitting down became something she couldn't tear her eyes from.

"Considering the amount of red tape it must've taken to see me, I'm expecting this to be good," Alex said. Piper didn't say anything. She was trying to decide where to begin. In the seconds that process was taking, Alex leaned forward, her elbows resting on the table between them, hands lightly clasped. "Was this your first strip search?" she asked suggestively, fixing Piper with a look that burned right through her, flashing green behind her black-rimmed secretary glasses.

Piper flinched but tried to give nothing away. The smirk on Alex's face let her know she was giving away a lot more than she thought.

"It was, wasn't it?" Alex gave a soft chuckle, clearly enjoying herself. And why shouldn't she? It had been years since she'd seen the inside of the visitor's room at Litchfield. She could suddenly relate to that puppy with his new toy. And her toy was bright and shiny and so untouched it was irresistible. "So how'd you do it?"

Piper looked at her with round, blue eyes, confusion creasing her brow. "I just… took off whatever they-"

"Not the search," Alex said exasperated. "How'd you get to see me? The list I'm on… it must've taken you what… a couple of months?"

Yes, Piper would've had to wait six to eight weeks to see Alex if she had gone through the proper channels of requesting visitation. Processing, auditing, vetting, and who knows what other time-wasting aspects the system employed in these situations. Fortunately for Piper – even though it was a fortune she didn't like to acknowledge let alone call on – she was part of a rare breed of family. The type of family with money and networks, and money. 'Proper channels' don't exist if they don't want them to. She hated herself for doing it but really there was no other choice.

"That's not important," Piper replied, deliberately avoiding getting into that part. "What's important is this list you're on, and why you're on it." She waited for Alex to interrupt with questions or a snarky remark, but the brunette was listening, apparently waiting for her to continue. Piper took a steadying breath and did just that. "I've recently found myself the target of someone – someone dangerous – who you have had dealings with in the past."

"Dealings?" Alex repeated with some confusion. She wasn't in the mood for a fishing expedition and as cute as her visitor was, these sessions were timed and she didn't want to have to leave without knowing the full story behind what could have brought a hot blonde girl who clearly has her head screwed on the right way to seek out someone like her.

"The not so legal kind of dealings."

"Yeah, you're still painting a pretty broad picture here, kid," Alex interrupted. Her past was checkered with not-so-legal dealings starting from around nineteen years old. This could be a very long guessing game.

"Kubra Balik," Piper said. Rather abruptly, as it turned out, but she was running out of time and patience so couldn't be bothered either way.

Piper just made out the shift behind Alex's eyes – playful and mischievous suddenly turned cold and hard – when the brunette sat up. She straightened in her seat, arms folded protectively across her chest, checking the room as if it only just occurred to her that someone might be watching.

"What about him?" Alex asked guardedly, her voice much lower than before. She was actually taking care to keep it down this time.

"He's threatening to kill my fiancé and then me, if I don't give him what he wants," Piper said carefully, each whispered word laced with quiet desperation. She was at the end of her road. She needed help.

"So give him what he wants," Alex replied with a shrug she meant to play off as nonchalant but the look on her face, and those eyes… it was so obvious she was spooked. Meanwhile her mind started racing a mile a minute. What could someone like Miss Got-it-Together over here possibly have that would catch Kubra's eye? Would make him want to kill for it?

"You don't understand," Piper started to argue.

This time Alex abandoned all pretense and leaned in again, palms flat on the table between them. "No you're the one who doesn't understand. You don't know who you're dealing with. This man…" The last time she'd spoken his name was in a witness stand. Right before everything fell to shit and she became the walking dead for doing it. She wouldn't dare spare another breath on it. "This man only plays games he can win. And he always wins."

"But he has him," Piper said then, urged by desperation. "My fiancé."

"Sorry to break your heart, kid, but your fiancé is already dead. And you'll be too if you don't hand over whatever it is he's asking for. And do it with a smile, just in case."

But Piper didn't come all this way just to be shown the door. She shook her head. "No. I need your help. You know him. You were part of his inner circle. You could-"

"A man like that doesn't have an inner circle," Alex interrupted. She was quickly losing her patience with Piper who refused to accept she was fighting a losing battle. You always lose when it's against Kubra. "Everyone's disposable. He'd make his own mother disappear if he wanted to."

"But you're here," Piper said. "Practically a sitting duck, and he hasn't done anything to you. That tells me-"

"It tells you shit," Alex said, struggling to keep her voice down. She checked over her shoulder to see that the guard wasn't watching before turning back to Piper. "He's clearly found a worthy distraction and if you think I'm going to remind him I exist just so he can-"

"A man called Fahri…" Piper interrupted and the mention of that name shut Alex up instantly. "He disappeared a little over four years ago."

Alex leaned back in her chair again, considering Piper with renewed suspicion, surprised by how much she knew but trying not to show it.

"Aydin Bayat? You know him?" Piper didn't wait for a reply because she knew the answer. "He disappeared late last year. Both were part of this inner circle you say doesn't exist. But if you ask me, I think Kubra's taking his time picking his closest minions off one by one. Close minions, of which he had three. Guess who's left?"

Alex pursed her lips and said nothing. What was there to say? Piper was right. All this time she'd felt as if Kubra was toying with her. Making her watch as he inched his way closer and closer to her with every life he took. And was she safe inside Litchfield? A man like Kubra had means and ways to get what he wanted.

"I need your help," Piper said then, abandoning the no-shit tone for a softer approach. She could tell Alex was closed up and she wanted her on board with this. She needed her to warm up.

"Look around you," Alex said. "What the hell could I possibly do for you from in here?"

"Well for starters, you wouldn't be in here," Piper said, keeping her voice matter of fact even though she knew this was it – the deal-closer, the show stopper, the winning ticket.

"Is that right?" Alex said with a laugh. She couldn't help it. The poor girl was so obviously delusional. "What are you going to do? Break me out? Are you going to pass me a teaspoon under the table so I can dig a tunnel out of my cell?" Piper remained tight-lipped and let Alex have her fun. "No, they would've found the spoon in the strip search. So what's your plan?" Alex finished, fixing Piper with an incredulous look.

"You don't have to know the details," Piper said. "Say yes, and I'll get it done. And I'll pay you." That last part was said on a whim. Not part of the original plan but Piper was pulling out all the stops.

The two entered into a stare-off that seemed to last forever. Piper's head like a calm sea, patiently waiting for Alex to snap at the bait. Alex's head bursting with runaway thoughts. Trying to figure out this blonde mystery in front of her, what the hell Kubra was playing at, the possibility of freedom?...

"And what makes you think I'd want out?" Alex said eventually. "If I'm not safe in here, I'm even less so out there. I might as well put a gun to my head right here and now and get it over with."

"Your ex boss isn't the only one who can make people disappear," Piper said, and then quickly retracted off Alex's expression of shock. "No, I don't- I'm not a killer or anything. I mean… that came out a little more foreboding than I intended."

"You don't say."

"Do you have access to the internet?" Piper asked.

"I could," Alex replied with a shrug. She was on good terms with all the guards. If she needed a few minutes at a computer, she was sure she could get it.

"Okay," Piper said, perking up. Things were starting to look a little more hopeful. "I want you to run a search on these names." She slid a tiny piece of paper that looked like it was hastily ripped from a notepad across the table and Alex palmed it quickly so no-one would see.

"What is it?"

"They're the names of people you will find nothing on after 2002. Whistleblowers. Cost their company a chunk of cash because of it. Their lives and the lives of their families were threatened."

"Corporations, man. That shit'll kill you," Alex said.

"Exactly. But not them… because I helped."

Alex eyed Piper a little dubiously. She wasn't convinced. This woman couldn't be more than 24, maybe 25? And she was promising to not only get her out of a 15 year sentence, but also to hide her from a man it was impossible to hide from.

"Just… do the search," Piper pressed on.

"Two minutes," came the call from the guard on duty.

Piper's anxiety levels shot up. She needed to leave here with a definitive answer. She wasn't supposed to have spent the entire time trying to convince the woman to help – that was supposed to be the easy part.

"What do you want me to do?" Alex asked. She looked for the first time like she was considering Piper's proposal.

Piper's heart leapt in her chest. "Everything you know about him. Where he could be, how he works, his weaknesses. Mostly where he could be. I have to find him."

"To save your fiancé?"

Piper nodded.

"What do you have that's got him so wound up?"

Piper shook her head. "That's not important. Just… know that if he were to have it… one of the most dangerous men you know would have a very dangerous weapon at his disposal."

Alex studied Piper closely. Intrigued by the woman who obviously wanted to get her fiancé back alive while also trying to be a hero for the world. That took some serious balls. She knew that if she were in the same position, she'd choose self-preservation. It's what she always chose. And it had served her well for nearly thirty years. Including now. If she agreed to help, and this kid was for real, that meant she'd get out of here and out of Kubra's reach for good. Whether Piper succeeded in saving her fiancé - and the world - wasn't any concern of hers. They'd most likely both end up dead. But she would be free. Forever. No more looking over her shoulder or sleeping with one eye open… A loud buzzer, same as the first, rang out and called an end to visitation.

Slowly the room that had been hushed began to fill with sounds of scraping chairs and hurried goodbyes, final hugs and promises to visit again soon. But Piper remained seated, looking at Alex looking at her. People were milling around and gradually filing out around them but they all might as well not have existed. There was nothing else in that room with the two women. Nothing except a desperate question begging for an answer.

"Do you know if he's still alive?" Alex asked, able to raise her voice a bit because of the increased noise level in the room.

"Come on people!" the guard yelled, noticing the two that were still seated.

Piper glanced in his direction quickly and then back to Alex. She nodded.

"You're sure?"

Piper nodded again.

"Inmate! This is a warning!"

Piper shot to her feet, somehow feeling that if she didn't at least look like she were leaving she might get cuffed and thrown in a cell herself. She was hanging on a thread, coming undone with anticipation for Alex's answer. Her last resort. Her only hope.

Alex on the other hand already knew what she was going to say. But it was vital to keep the upper hand in this thing. Her whole life she'd seen how quickly a well laid plan could get out of whack. This was her last chance. She wasn't going to be on the receiving end of bad luck again. As long as Piper believed she needed Alex more than she needed her, Alex could orchestrate things to run in her favor.

Piper had fallen in step behind the last of the visitors, awkwardly trying to walk sideways so she could look at Alex still seated at the table. Then the brunette looked up. Their eyes found each other and Piper's heart jumped into her throat. She hoped Alex could tell she was pleading. Alex stood up slowly and slipped the piece of paper into the front pocket of her standard issue shirt, holding Piper's gaze the whole time as the blonde made her way out. And then she nodded. Piper exhaled with heavy relief, her shoulders dropping as the tension released from her body, and just before she crossed under the metal detector to move finally out of sight, mouthed the words thank you.

Alex smiled back even though it was a smile Piper couldn't see. It wasn't really meant for her anyway. A dangerous weapon. The kid barely looked like she could fry an egg, let alone cook up something of mass destruction. No thanks. She'd had enough of that life. She'd use Piper to get out, take the money, and help herself to a healthy dose of freedom. She let the guard herd her into a group with the other inmates, ushering them out of the visitor's area like sheep. The herd moved slowly to keep from stepping on each other. Alex took advantage of the moment and reached inside her pocket for the piece of paper. Without sparing it or the names on it another thought she let it drop to the floor, where it was promptly trampled to the point of illegibility by a horde of passing prison boots.


	2. Chapter 2

_Hi everyone! I just wanted to say thanks to those who gave feedback on the first chapter. I really appreciate it. I'm glad you are all enjoying this so here is the next chapter._

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 **The Equation – Chapter 2**

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 **Saturday, May 25th, 2013**

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Lights out came and went a few hours ago. B Dorm – or The Suburbs as it was called by the inmates – was blanketed in silence. Save for the usual sounds of snoring and sometimes fitful nightmare-ridden sleeps of some of the inmates. But sleep wouldn't find Alex.

She lay on her bunk, fully clothed, staring into the darkness above her. She was replaying the meeting with her mysterious visitor for the hundredth time in her head. Her mind refused to be still. It felt like she had exhausted every possible angle to look at this. All through work duty, meals, yard time… Kubra, what he could be after, what she was risking by getting involved with him again, how the strange blonde woman fit into everything… Piper Chapman. If Alex were honest, she was the reason for her restlessness. Because in the stillness of night and shadowed privacy of the dark, it was easy to go there. To let your mind wander to places it wouldn't usually go in the harsh judgement of daylight. The shape of her brows, the line of her jaw, the striking blue of her eyes… mostly how she acted like she was totally oblivious to it. There was little as attractive as a woman who had no idea just how attractive she was. Alex groaned inwardly. Three years was way too fucking long. Fantasizing about a stranger, a woman she just met, a woman mixed up with Kubra. That should be enough of a turn-off. But there was something about Piper Chapman that drew Alex in. Something she couldn't quite put her finger on. It felt mysterious, a little dangerous, and the thought excited her. Made her feel something other than the mindnumbing boredom that filled her days at Litchfield. For the first time in years – it made her feel alive. So maybe it was foolish of her to trust a stranger, to even consider getting back into bed with the source of her nightmares after everything he had put her through, but Piper Chapman gave her something that day she hadn't had in the longest time. Hope. And she was ready to go against whatever doubts she had to see where it landed her. Surely anything would be better than staring down the barrel of Kubra's gun. Or another taco Tuesday in this hell hole.

"Vause." It was only a whisper but it made Alex jump the way it shot through the dark to pierce her thoughts.

She groped for her glasses beside her and put them on. Piscatella towered at the foot of her bunk. How she had missed the arrival of someone with such immense bulk was beyond her. this whole Kubra-Chapman mess had her so distracted, she would be easy pickings for anyone looking for some target practice. She looked at him without saying anything. Was he here for target practice? Was he one of Kubra's men?

"Caputo. Now," the guard barked at her in the lowest volume he could manage. He barked everything he said and having to keep his voice down wasn't a strong point.

"What time is it?" Alex asked, but Piscatella had already turned and started out of the dorm.

She sat up, her mind racing. She had seen Caputo leave early that afternoon. Something he only did when his band had a gig at one of the seedy bars in town. What could've brought him back here? _Well for starters, you wouldn't be in here_ Alex straightened, her heart hammering in her ears.

"No fucking way," she said out loud to the memory of Piper's voice in her head.

It had only been a few hours. She couldn't have pulled it off already. Could she?... The idea pushed Alex from her bunk and she hurried after Piscatella, her white socks padding lightly on the cool linoleum floor.

The guard led her through the sleeping prison – eerie in its silence – always a stride or two ahead, never once looking back.

"Did he say what it's about?" she asked. Piscatella grunted. "Do you know if anyone's in there with him?" She tried a different angle. Still no answer. "A woman… blonde… just a little shorter than-"

"I was told to get you and I'm getting you, now shut the hell up," Piscatella said.

And that was the end of it. Alex wasn't about to go pissing off the scariest guard in there just in case this turned out not to be her get out of jail free card. Free. Something very similar to the hope she had felt earlier started to flutter in her stomach, making her feel like laughing, crying, and throwing up all at the same time.

After what felt like forever they finally reached Caputo's office. The door was open. Piscatella strode in without knocking but Alex's feet froze on the threshold. She saw the warden behind his desk, saw him look up and right at her. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. He waved Piscatella to leave and she quickly pressed herself to the one side so the burly guard could get by.

"You just going to stand there?" Caputo asked, eyeing her over the top of his glasses.

Alex forced her feet to move and slowly entered the office. She didn't sit down though.

"Sit down," Caputo said, motioning to the chair in front of the desk.

Alex considered it for a second but then shook her head. "I'm fine, sir, thanks. What is this about?"

"This? I thought you'd never ask," Caputo began. He didn't sound very happy. In fact, he sounded right pissed off about something. That flutter of hope in Alex's stomach gave a hiccup. "You know how many times I've gotten a call from the governor on my private cell?" he asked.

Alex shook her head. The governor? What the hell was going on?

"Just once," Caputo said then. "Earlier tonight, in fact." He took a breath and leaned back in his chair, watching her closely, as if he was thinking about what to do with her. Alex met his gaze comfortably. Her self-confidence was often mistaken as arrogance but she wasn't easily intimidated.

"Sir, if you don't mind my asking, but what does-"

"I'm getting there," he cut her off. "You sure you don't want to sit?"

Feeling like this could probably take a while, judging by his mood to apparently want to go into lengthy stories, Alex decided to sit down after all. He waited for her to do so before starting up again.

"You're quite the popular one tonight, Vause. The governor, Supreme Court judge, DA's office… I got paperwork up to my neck. Rush order this, urgency that, but I can smell the money a mile away. You come into some money recently, Vause?"

"Sir?" She didn't know the details, but she knew that this had Piper all over it, and she also knew she had to be careful not to give anything away. Supreme Court? How deep did the kid's pockets run?

"Tonight was a big one for us," he went on, ignoring her. It was like he was talking at her and not to her. "The band had the biggest turn out we've had in months." He sounded so much like he was feeling sorry for himself that Alex found it hard to sympathize. "But work comes first," he added in a tired tone that showed he was used to his life being derailed by matters of Litchfield on a regular basis.

He grabbed a pen from its holder next to his nameplate on the desk and proceeded to sign a form that was lying in front of him this whole time, ending with a flourish as he swiped his signature across the page. Then he held the form out to her.

"This is your release form," he said simply.

Alex looked at it, then at him, and back to the form. Just like that. She swallowed. There were so many questions but she couldn't say any of them.

"Piscatella should be waiting for you. Give it to him and he'll see you through the rest of it." He waved the piece of paper at her because Alex was yet to make a move to take it.

So it turned out Piper Chapman was true to her word. The first part of it anyway. But if this was a sign of things to come, it meant that the kid would also deliver on the money she promised. It shouldn't be this easy. Nothing in Alex's life was ever this easy. There weren't very many people in her life she could call reliable or trustworthy. A wave of gratitude for the blonde stranger washed over her then. The stranger who saved her from wasting away in this place, and would probably also save her from Kubra. It shouldn't be this easy, Alex thought again. She snatched the form from Caputo in case he remembered that same thing and decided to change his mind.

"Oh and congratulations, Vause," he said to her as she reached the door.

She turned back, an unsure, nervous kind of smile playing on her lips, still not sure that any of this was real. "Thanks."

"Don't fuck it up."

She nodded and walked out, and only then did she let go of everything she was holding onto in there. Her heart soared, filling up the empty open space of the deserted hallway. Piscatella waited at the end of it, but even his scowl when he read the form she handed him couldn't dampen her spirits.

It was the middle of the night. The release of prisoners is a process usually followed through when the appropriate admin staff were on call during the day, so it was nearly a full hour before Alex walked through the final gates of Litchfield - wearing a pair of prison-issue blue jeans and an old sweatshirt - and breathed in the crisp night air. She took it in deep, let it fill her lungs until it hurt, until her ears throbbed and her eyes stung. She could feel the hulk of the prison building bearing down on her from behind and although she felt the weight of it, she didn't turn to look. That life was where it belonged – in the past. This was her second chance and she was going to do nothing but move forward.

The renewed hope and lust for life took a dip as Alex looked around at the deserted parking lot, save for the few beaters belonging to the night staff. It should be close to 3am now. She had no money and nowhere to go. For all Piper Chapman's resourceful planning, she had neglected to give Alex any kind of direction of where to go once she got out. Just when she started thinking about maybe going back inside to use a phone, call a cab or something, she heard the sound of an approaching car. A car that came to stop right in front of her, catching her in its headlight – just one, because the other one was out. Alex squinted into the light as she tried to make out the person behind the wheel, but to no avail. A door opened and slammed shut.

"Alex Vause?" It was a male voice. Alex squinted in its general direction. The glare of the one good headlight striking her temporarily blind.

"Piper Chapman sent me," the voice said. It was getting closer. And then its owner came to stand in front of the car, blocking the light so Alex could finally see.

It took her eyes a few seconds to readjust before she finally could make out the shadowy form standing in front of her. A fairly round man, the shaggy hair on top of his head and on his face a dirty kind of blonde. He wore a flannel shirt and beige cargo pants. Cargo pants. He looked like a woodcutter who lived in the forest, like he belonged in the wild. Alex frowned. Why hadn't Piper come herself? For all the secrecy shrouding her so-called plans, why would she risk something so sensitive with someone like… well, this guy?

"Who are you?" she asked.

"Holy smokin' hydrangeas," the man said, stepping nearer and studying her a little too closely for her liking. Alex took a step back. "I'm her brother… Cal," he stuck out his hand. "And she failed to mention the extent of hotness I'd be chauffeuring tonight." His hand still hung stupidly in midair and Alex still didn't move to take it.

"Where's Piper?"

Finally getting the message, Cal let his hand drop back to his side. "She had a thing. Asked me to come."

"A thing?" Alex asked incredulously. "At 3am?"

"You know Piper," he replied in a matter-of-fact way, as if she was supposed to know what that meant.

Because no, she didn't know Piper. And she didn't know him. And now she was just expected to get into his beat-up car and let him take her away? Alex hugged her arms across her chest, trying to stave off the chill that was starting to creep through the worn fabric of her sweatshirt. She could brave the night out here. It would be hard and unpleasant but it would be on her terms. If she went with him now, who knew what would happen.

"Come on," Cal said, moving back to the driver's side to get in. "I'll stop being a creep. Get in. It's freezing out."

She watched him slide into his seat and wait, the car still idling. The thought occurred to her then, that it was taking the leap to trust a stranger that got her into Caputo's office an hour ago. Got her outside the gates of that prison. Things have been working out so far, so maybe, just maybe they would continue to do so. Alex took a breath and let it out slowly, her mind working overtime to make the right decision. Even though she was back to being blinded by the headlight and couldn't see Cal inside the car, she could feel him watching her. How long would the drive be? She didn't even know where they were going. Where Piper lived. If they were even going to Piper. Since she 'had a thing'.

"Thing my ass," Alex mumbled to herself as she made her way to the car, making a mental note to get Piper for this. Right after she thanked her for getting her out of prison of course.

"Hey," Cal said as she slid into the passenger seat and closed the door. "For a second there I thought you were going to make a run for it." He put the car into gear and started back the way he had come.

Cal kept glancing over at her and Alex steeled herself. He promised he wouldn't be creepy, he promised he wouldn't be creepy, he promised he wouldn't be-

"So what are your thoughts on threesomes?" he asked. "My wife would love you."

Alex rolled her eyes. "Please just shut up and drive."

"As you wish," Cal replied. "Just… keep an open mind is all I'm saying. Sleep on it."

Alex shook her head and looked out her window so she didn't have to deal with him, hoping she had made the right choice by trusting Piper, that wherever Kubra was, he was unaware of her recent movements into the realm of the free. Mostly she just hoped that the drive wouldn't be too long and that Cal wouldn't be too chatty.

As it turned out, the drive was a long one. But Cal – despite some of his offside remarks here and there – was on the whole a good natured guy. He even made a stop to grab some bagels and coffee. And it was nice. The coffee, the food, being out… Alex got to watch the sun wake up, reaching its finger flares over the scenery that shot by her window, washing the world in a golden rinse that took her breath away. Like the place was waking up especially for her, because she got out and this was its way of celebrating. She knew it was silly to think so, but she liked the thought anyway. When they finally got to the city, Alex was on her second coffee and in a deep explanation about why she thought Cal should cut his mother some slack. She knew his wife was on her period, their son Nemo was cutting teeth – and actually had a pretty good remedy for it that Cal promised to try out once he got home… but mostly she had learned about Piper. The mystery Samaritan who had changed her life in a matter of hours. Piper was smart – the smartest person alive according to Cal, she loved music, hated people, lived for math, and was easily amused by simple card tricks. Through careful questioning, Alex learned that Cal knew nothing of what was actually going on with the whole Piper/Kubra/her fiancé being kidnapped thing. According to the poor guy, Alex was an old college friend who asked to crash on Piper's couch while she found her feet after being released from prison for a mild case of fraud.

"Here we are," Cal said as he pulled into an empty parking.

With the window cracked, the sounds of the early morning city filtered in and Alex realized for the first time how much she missed it. Traffic, people, everyone on their own mission to get somewhere… life. And she was back in it. For a fleeting moment, the thought of her agreement with Piper pushed into her mind. Kubra. Before she knew it, Cal was at her door and holding it open. She hadn't even noticed him getting out, she was so caught up in her head with everything.

"Thanks," she said, and got out, looking up at the brownstone in front of them. There was money here all right.

Cal went in without knocking, and Alex followed, wondering if he and his family lived here too. They didn't cover that bit on the drive up. He led her into a spacious living room, incredibly tidy, with a piano in one corner.

"She's always in the basement. I'll get her," he said and Alex nodded as she watched him go.

She moved slowly through the room, taking in little details she didn't know were being committed to her memory as bits and pieces of Piper. It smelled faintly of vanilla. Was that her smell then? She wasn't aware of it yet because the process was subtle and subconscious, but Piper Chapman was starting to become an indelible part of her.

There were beautiful pieces of art on every wall and something in particular caught her eye – it was hung above the fireplace – and Alex moved toward it to get a closer look. Four heavy black frames hung side by side and in each of them was a sheet of music, written in a hurried scrawl. There was no title and no composer. Alex caught her reflection in the glass and was distracted for a moment. Every time she looked in a mirror there would be a bathroom stall behind her, another inmate beside her… She fixed her glasses on her nose, looked past the reflection of her face to see the reflection of the huge painting that hung on the wall behind her. No bathroom stalls. A slow smile crept onto her lips.

"Have you eaten?"

Alex spun round, startled out of her reverie by a voice she had no problem recognizing. Because she had heard it very recently, her mind reasoned. Because other reasons, her heart argued on the side. Alex quieted them both and looked at Piper. Her hair was swept up in a messy ponytail, and although she seemed tired, her eyes were on fire. She wore an old MIT t-shirt. And that was it. Alex bit the inside of her lip and forced her eyes back up from the miles of legs that were calling their attention. If there was anything under the shirt, it was well hidden.

"We stopped to get something on the way," Alex finally managed to say just as Cal appeared in the doorway.

"Good," Piper said, giving her a quick once over. "Let's get started." She turned on her heel and walked out the way she had come, not even acknowledging Cal or waiting for Alex.

"Good luck," he said with a wave. "I'll see myself out."

Alex heard the front door open and close, marking his exit and suddenly the house felt empty and stranger than that, she felt alone. It's just the effects of prison life wearing off, she thought to herself, gave her shoulders a shake to get rid of that unsettling feeling, and started in the direction Piper had gone just as her name echoed from somewhere deep inside the house.


	3. Chapter 3

_Hi everyone! Much thanks for the warm welcomes and great feedback. I was not sure about this story at first because it is very different from usual Vauseman. However, there seems to be some interest and so I am more than happy to share with you the things my brain has been creating for Piper and Alex. I hope you enjoy it._

* * *

 **The Equation – Chapter 3**

* * *

 **/**

 **Saturday, May 25** **th** **, 2013**

 **/**

Not kind enough to wait but at least enough to leave the door to the basement ajar so Alex could find it easily. There were two sliding bolts fixed to it aside from the regular lock and Alex pulled it open thinking about what Cal could have meant when he said 'good luck' as he left. He didn't know what they were doing, so it could only have been in reference to being with his sister in general. A little worrying, but where Piper didn't like people very much, Alex was the opposite. People were her thing. And after years of dealing with some horrific examples of human beings, Alex considered Piper Chapman a little lamb.

"I designed a program that will help us close in on Kubra using the information you give me," Piper said right when Alex planted her foot off the last step leading down into the basement.

"I guess we're jumping right in then," Alex said and walked over to her.

The basement was the exact opposite of the homey feel the rest of the house had. No beautiful paintings down here. There was a huge desk taken up entirely by screens and desktop computers, a makeshift privacy curtain covered all of the back wall, a table that looked like it belonged in a senator's dining room stood in the middle of the large open-plan space, and sunken into a huge blue beanbag just to the left of it was Piper, tapping away on her laptop. Alex dropped down beside her, a move that nearly sent the laptop careering off to the side.

Piper snatched after the device and glared at her. "I was going to project the screen," she said, motioning at the white-washed wall on the other side of the room.

Alex snuggled deeper, making herself comfortable. "I'm good," she said with affected earnestness and trained her eyes on the laptop screen, fighting back a knowing smile.

She felt Piper staring at her, felt how she instantly tensed up the second she sat down, but she feigned innocence. Alex loved pushing people's buttons, especially with the ladies. Watching them get all flustered despite themselves. It was amusing and lighthearted innocence in a world where that didn't exist for her.

Piper exhaled slowly, most likely turning words she wanted to say into breath instead to avoid a confrontation, and turned her attention back to the screen. But she was having trouble making sense of the very program she designed. Alex had positioned herself to fit under Piper's arm, and so the blonde was achingly aware of her breathing, every rise and fall of her chest as it brushed against her.

"Alex?" she said, turning to look at her, searching her face.

Alex gave a small laugh. "No funny business, relax," she said. "It's been a while, sure, but this is work. Scout's honor."

It was the right thing to say because it was true. But Alex could have sworn that a hint of disappointment flashed behind Piper's searching eyes before she quickly turned away nodding. No, Alex corrected herself. That's just what happens when you have no-one to satiate your desires for too long.

Piper cleared her throat. "This will look at Kubra, known connections, where he-"

"Could you just…" Alex leaned over to tilt the screen and tried to ignore the way Piper stiffened when she did. "Better," she said. "You may continue."

"I was just saying, if we-"

"One more thing," Alex said, "Sorry, it's just… thanks." The plain sincerity in her tone must've affected Piper because she turned to her again and Alex nearly lost her words. "For getting me out," she said, grabbing them quickly before they got all muddled inside her head. "I don't know how you did it, but I know it couldn't have been easy." And then she looked away. Stared at the screen even though she had no clue about what was going on there, but she just couldn't look at Piper any longer.

"You're welcome," Piper replied, surprising herself with the softness of her tone. "Thank you for agreeing to let me bust you out." They both shared a little chuckle at that and after a second to find her train of thought, she continued with the work.

At first Alex was blown away by the system. It took every little detail she gave and ran it through an algorithm that then went on to predict the most probable future activity and locations for Kubra based on past behavior, habits, people he knew, what he liked to eat… But after what felt like forever, Piper was still going, grilling her endlessly about types of cheeses he liked best and his favorite wine. It wasn't that mind-blowing anymore, just an agitator to the fact that she hadn't gotten any sleep the night before.

"Can we take a break?" Alex groaned, flopping her head back and taking off her glasses to massage her tired eyes.

"Sure, I'll just ask Kubra to hold off on killing my fiancé for a couple of hours while you rest."

Alex's head shot up. "Don't you do that."

"Do what?" Piper asked acting all doe-eyed innocence.

"Suggest that it's my fault if-"

Piper snapped the laptop shut with force and it was like she'd physically shut Alex's mouth along with it. Perhaps it was lack of sleep combined with lack of food and maybe also hours in that stupid beanbag without coming up for air, but her mood was just as bleak as Alex's. But the difference was that she didn't have the luxury of taking a break.

"The only reason you're even here is to help me do this, so yes, if we fail-"

"You don't get to put that on me," Alex shot back instantly, pushing up from the beanbag, her head spinning a little as her body tried to assimilate to the sudden change in position. "I told you from the start what you were up against with him. I said to give him what he wants, which, by the way, you still haven't told m-"

"Because it doesn't matter." Piper was on her feet now too, the laptop discarded in the warm indentations on the beanbag.

"Doesn't matter? All I've heard since I met you – my fiancé, my fiancé, my poor little helpless little fiancé-"

"That's not what I sound like."

"It's exactly what you sound like. And you're standing there telling me it doesn't matter, right after you told me at least two people are about to die because of it. Well I'm no MIT graduate who builds fancy codes in my basement but I know bullshit when I see it. I don't need a degree for that," Alex ended out of breath. She wasn't planning on losing her shit like that but she was tired of the runaround. She was tired in general. It was time for answers.

"Can we just-"

"All I've done since I got here was answer every question you asked. You kept asking and I kept talking. Well now it's your turn to return the favor." She folded her arms across her chest, glowering at Piper.

"Return the favor? Uh, let me see… get you out of prison, give you money…"

"Which I haven't seen yet, by the way."

"You'll get it when this is over. I may not have street smarts or whatever, but I'm aware of the proper procedures when dealing with a criminal."

Alex was silenced. It was stupid, but the life she led… the things she did… even ending up in prison… she never once thought of herself in that way. She was a business woman. Who sometimes acted outside of the law. Criminal. It made her feel dirty. And the way Piper looked when she said it…

"Well can I at least have a sandwich?" she asked.

Piper looked at her wide-eyed, that anger still seething in them but clearly blindsided by such a benign request in what felt like the heat of an argument. Her breathing started to slow back to normal and her fists unclenched.

"I have pizza pockets," she said then.

"I'll take it," Alex said and offered an apology in the form of a smile.

Piper accepted it by smiling back, shaking her head at the craziness of what just happened – calm to complete blow-out and back to calm – and just like that the last of the built up tension between them dissipated and they made their way back upstairs.

* * *

They were seated on either end of the three-seater sofa in Piper's living room. She had wanted to go right back down after warming their pockets but Alex managed to talk her into at least eating upstairs, promising complete focus and diligence once they finished.

"Did you write that?" Alex asked off the sheet music hung above Piper's fireplace. She'd noticed Piper's nervous habit of fingers tapping away at an imaginary piano – on the laptop while she waited for the algorithms to run, on her leg while they waited for their food… So Alex wasn't surprised when Piper nodded, not looking up from her plate.

"What's it called?"

Piper shook her head. "Doesn't have a title," she mumbled through a bite of her pocket.

"Well, play it for me and I'll see if I can come up with one," Alex suggested lightly. Her mood had lifted considerably once she was free of that claustrophobic basement and with some food in her stomach.

Piper froze. Or at least it seemed that way to Alex. It was only for a second. Even less. Then she placed her pocket in her plate and shook her head again.

"Maybe later." She looked at her and smiled, and even though Alex hadn't seen many of those – Piper's smiles – she noticed instantly that this one didn't reach her eyes.

She didn't push though. People were her thing, after all, and she was reading Piper loud and clear. Push and she pushes back, closes up, cuts you off. Although sometimes… if you knew just how far to go…

"So what's the deal with the fiancé?" she asked.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean… why do you never say his name?"

Alex studied her closely. How she deliberately wasn't looking at her, the subtle changes in her movements, the way she thought she was being a convincing liar. Oh this was Alex's game all right. And if she was going to be stuck in that basement for the rest of the day she was going to have her fun while she could.

"What are you talking about? I say his name," Piper said, turning to her now.

Alex shook her head, smiling. "You call him your fiancé."

"Well, that's what he is."

"But the way you keep saying it, it's like you're trying to remind yourself that's what he is."

"What? No, that's- I don't do that. Larry, his name's Larry. See? I said it."

"Wow," was all Alex said, and she continued eating.

"Wow what?" Piper asked. She couldn't help herself. She wanted to know what Alex was thinking. A little voice in the back of her head told her she was better off not knowing, but Piper didn't make a habit of listening to that voice. If she did, Alex wouldn't even be there with her. "Tell me," she pressed on, her sudden eagerness getting a laugh out of the brunette.

"Oh so now you're interested?"

"Yes, so tell me."

"Well I just think it's a lot of trouble you're going through to help someone you're not in love with," Alex said with a shrug, contrasting the blow she just dealt with her perfect nonchalant delivery of it. She knew what she was doing.

It had the desired reaction and Piper was immediately incensed. "I never said that."

"Not those exact words, no. But you definitely said it."

"Larry and I have been friends for years," Piper argued.

"I'll tell you something…"

"That's okay, you really don't need to," Piper said and got up with her plate, about to make her way to the kitchen.

"No, let me tell you…" Alex insisted, following close behind. "I'm in no way the marrying type, but if for the sake of argument I were to ever go down that road, I think I would literally die if my wife ever described me as her friend."

Piper stopped dead just as she reached the doorway to the kitchen and turned around, realizing with some awkwardness just how closely Alex had been following. "Your wife?"

Alex held her gaze, a slow smile sneaking onto her lips. She stepped closer. Leaned in. So many buttons begging for her attention… "So what's really the deal with your friend, Larry?"

Piper swallowed. Of all the eventualities she had postulated, the scenarios she had plotted, for all the programming power stored in her basement and computing power in her head, nothing could have prepared her for the unstoppable force in front of her. Or her struggle to control herself around it.

"The deal-" Piper cleared her throat and tried again. "The deal is, we have less than 24 hours to find him or this whole situation gets a lot more complicated."

Alex chuckled softly. "Oh, I think that's already happened."

No longer trusting her body in such close proximity to Alex, Piper shuffled to the side to unwedge herself from between the brunette and the doorframe and moved to put her empty plate in the sink. It landed with a clatter that gave away just how badly her hand was shaking. When she turned back around Alex was still standing where she had left her, wearing a smug smile, obviously aware of the effect she was having on Piper and so obviously enjoying it.

"We should get back to work," Piper said, avoiding eye contact as she hurried out of the kitchen, afraid the ever-perceptive Alex might just pick up on the fact that she was kind of enjoying it too.

* * *

 _This chapter is a bit shorter but I didn't have much time today, sorry! I will not be able to update over the weekend unfortunately because I don't have access to internet so the next chapter will be up on Monday. Thank you for reading and have a great weekend :)_


	4. Chapter 4

_Hi everyone! Never-ending thanks to all of you for being so kind and encouraging in your comments. It means a lot. Sorry for missing updates the past few days but my school schedule is steamrolling me at the moment. I will try my best to update at least once every week if I fail to do it more often and as always, thanks for reading!_

* * *

 **The Equation – Chapter 4**

* * *

 **/**

 **Saturday, May 25** **th** **, 2013**

 **/**

Piper thanked the driver and got out of the cab, joining Alex on the sidewalk. She'd changed into a pair of Piper's jeans, kept the white t-shirt she had left the prison with but traded the garish sweatshirt for the vintage black leather jacket she tried to talk Piper into wearing. It was a lost cause though. There was a reason that jacket remained untouched in the back of Piper's closet. And anyway, she had always been more inclined to a good hoodie since her high school days. Now they looked like two regular girls about to head into a pizza place on a Saturday night. They waited for the cab to pull away and get a good distance down the street before starting off in the opposite direction, the music from the pizzeria growing fainter as they walked. They were a block and a half from their actual destination, so it was going to be a good walk. But being invisible was of utmost importance. Especially when she was this close to fixing things and ending the nightmare she had been living once and for all. Having her whole plan derailed because she said too much to a cabbie wasn't an option. That unsettled feeling was still there, curling itself in the pit of her stomach, but she was trying to think of all the ways this could help instead of obsess about the ways it could blow up in her face.

A few more hours in the basement earlier that day proved to be Alex's limit and she was pretty vocal about it, putting forward a rather convincing argument about time running out and how they were better off using Piper's data instead of doing nothing. It made a lot of sense at the time. Using the information Alex provided, two locations were flagged by Piper's program as highly probable sites where she might find Kubra on the given day and time. As it happened, Alex was not only familiar with the area but also with a pub conveniently situated less than a mile from the first red flag. Normally Piper would have balked at the suggestion, but like Alex said – more than one life depended not only on her having a foolproof plan but also on executing the plan at the right location. Hitting the wrong place would give Kubra enough time to react, and she didn't want that. The whole point was to strike before he got the idea she might be up to something. If she was lucky it would be good enough for everyone to get out of it unscathed. So here she was – on her first real world fishing expedition that didn't involve Google. Alex looked like she couldn't believe her luck when she had first agreed to it. Like she was half expecting Piper to throw her wet blanket over everything. But despite Alex's lifted mood when it was decided to take the investigation to the streets, a surly silence befell the brunette in the cab and only got worse when they were dropped off. When she was just four years old, Piper was entered into a program for gifted youth. She could barely write and pronounced it hippopoppamus, but seemed to grasp the most complex theories with ease. Her father always joked that her first word was Pi to the twentieth digit and almost three decades later, numbers was still the language she was most proficient in. Which made the silence between her and Alex so much worse. Breaking it required a skill she didn't have. Working out a way to deal with the woman beside her in this new space, even more so. Piper checked herself. She never made a habit of putting too much brain power into people problems and preferred a straightforward approach. It served her well in the past, so why wouldn't it now?

"What's wrong?" she finally asked, doing that straightforward thing.

Alex shook her head, digging her hands deeper into the pockets of her jeans. Piper's jeans. One of them closed on something and she held onto it. What was wrong? Where could she start in a way that Piper would get?

"We're taking action," Piper said. "No more basement. Just like you wanted."

This last statement drew a caustic laugh from Alex that sliced through the air between them. "What I wanted…" Alex said. "Right."

"Well isn't it? I don't understand."

"No… no you don't," Alex said. "And I'd explain it, but there isn't a white board around for me to give you a graphic representation that you could grasp."

Piper bit down on the inside of her lip at the harsh insult and the bitter way it was flung at her. At the implication that she was somehow less than human, who could only make sense of organized data. Like a machine. She resented it.

"Sorry," Alex mumbled the apology before Piper could say anything and then stopped walking, lightly touching Piper's arm so she would do the same. Piper turned to look at her. "I mean it, sorry," Alex continued. "It's just… I'm trying to catch up."

She sounded exhausted and a twinge of guilt twisted in Piper's chest. She hadn't given Alex any time at all to debrief or rest or even take stock of being out of prison.

"Catch up to what?"

"All of it," Alex replied. "One minute I'm on the front end of a fuckload of time and the next I'm in your basement doing an endless interview on the guy who got me the time in the first place. I just…" Alex raked her fingers through her hair and took in their surroundings with a breath that lifted her shoulders.

Piper watched them slowly fall as she released the breath after a time. Watched her eyes land on what must have been familiar things and places but remain unaffected by it all until they eventually found their way back to her face. It was dark so Piper couldn't be sure but it looked like Alex's eyes had softened at that point. She still said nothing though, just waited.

"I know this was my idea and all," Alex said, "putting your feelers out to see if anyone's picked up on his activity, but…"

"But…?" Was Alex having second thoughts? Was she about to bail? Was this how nervous breakdowns started? Maybe it was too much for her to handle so soon. Maybe Piper had pushed her too far. Overestimated her ability to deal with it.

A soft laugh escaped Alex. This time it was her laugh, not that horrible one from earlier. It was a little sad though. "I got so caught up in getting out of that godforsaken basement of yours… getting out of that piece of shit sweatshirt that smelled like inside and I was feeling like I'm out, I'm finally out and I never thought I would be and yet there I was… but the second that cab pulled up…" She dropped her eyes. Shook her head slowly. Piper waited. "It hit me what I was really doing," Alex said to the cracks in the sidewalk. "Looking him up, getting back into a world I thought I'd left behind for good…"

"You don't have to-"

"Don't I?" Alex looked at her. "I mean, I wasn't going to. I was ready to take the money and run. Leave you and your lover boy to learn the lesson all on your own."

"The lesson… that I can't win?" Alex nodded, holding Piper's gaze for what felt like forever. It felt like it was sinking right into her skin, Piper thought. She swallowed. "So what made you change your mind?"

Alex seemed to consider the question a while. "I guess on some subconscious level I've always known... I put the final nail in my coffin when I took that stand three years ago, and whether I'm inside or out here it doesn't matter. He's going to get me. I'll never really be out of it. Free of him."

"I told you I can-"

"Yeah, I know what you said. But you don't know him. And I guess I just figured I might as well try to help someone before my number gets called. Which is surprising considering I usually don't give a shit." She studied Piper with renewed intensity then. Like she was trying to figure out the woman who was making her abandon her lone wolf principles.

"Thank you," Piper said then, sincerity clear in her voice. "And sorry for not saying it sooner, but thank you for sticking your neck out for me." Alex waved a hand in a forget about it kind of way and the two carried on walking.

"And I know that I don't know him like you do," Piper went on, "but he doesn't know me either." She could see Alex trying to not laugh at that. Like what could some techie possibly have on one of the most dangerous men in the world? Well, a lot actually. And the time would come when all would be revealed but for now she just needed the next few hours to play out without anyone dying.

They reached the pub, the muted sound of Kenny Rogers filtering through the doors to where they stood rooted to the sidewalk. The building was old and rundown but fit perfectly into the rest of its surroundings. It was the perfect way to be invisible which, as Alex had explained to her, was necessary considering the not so legal nature of some of the things that went down there. The apartments above it housed undocumented immigrants and the owner of the place was like some kind of guardian angel for them and their families. Often the only kind of work an undocumented person could get was with someone who was willing to overlook that technicality, and usually that person would be the type who overlooked other kinds of technicalities too. And it was this kind of person – the person with possible links to the underground – that was invaluable to Piper's plan. It was this person who was most likely to have details on Kubra. Peering through the glass pane in the door to Red's Pub & Grill, Piper could make out the place wasn't exactly a hub of activity. Three patrons were spaced out along the full length of the bar and only one of the tables taking up the small floor space was occupied. Not exactly the kind of turnout you would expect for a Saturday night. Not exactly the best cover for operations that need to go unnoticed.

"I know you don't believe me," Piper said just as Alex made to pull the door open and go inside, "but I can keep you from him." She looked over to find Alex staring quizzically at her. "I made you a promise and I'll keep it. Whatever happens… he won't get to you this time."

Alex didn't know what to make of Piper. Standing there, blue eyes practically penetrating the deepest parts of her. Speaking as if she had some secret super power that could save her from the inevitable fate one sealed when doing this kind of business with a man like Kubra. Painfully unaware that she was about to start a dance she had no chance of finishing. So she just nodded before turning her attention back to the pub and the matter at hand.

"Okay so remember, these are my people, we do things my way. You just play it cool and follow my lead."

"Roger," Piper said.

And they went inside.

* * *

The air was stale with old smoke and breath and it hit Piper right in the face the second she walked in. She felt a cough attack coming on but knew the kind of consequences singling oneself out as a square could have and so sucked it up and clenched her jaw through it, waiting instead for the feeling to pass. Their entrance had set the chime above the door ringing, getting the attention of the bartender and at least one of the drunks seated at the bar. He flashed a toothless grin at Piper, who tried not to flinch and averted her eyes from the hairy flesh of his paunch hanging out from under his stretched and faded green t-shirt.

"Holy fuck." It was the bartender – a stocky, thickset woman with short black hair that hung the longest on the right, covering her one eye almost entirely.

She was apparently so shocked to see them she forgot about the beer she was about to pour, her hand frozen in midair, her one uncovered eye tracking her and Alex all the length of the bar as they went, her face an unreadable stone. Alex greeted her with a nod and continued deeper into the pub with Piper following close behind, stopping only once they had reached the very back of the place, at a forgotten table pushed against the wall.

"Okay," Alex said as she scanned the pub, and once she was happy that everyone in there was minding their own business, she went on, "Okay, so there's-" She stopped as she finally got a look at Piper. Piper who was standing there with her hoodie up, her face barely visible. "What are you doing?" Alex asked and quickly brushed Piper's hood back to reveal her head.

"Blending in," Piper replied, her eyes darting around a little self-consciously.

"Blending? You look like you're about to hold up the place. What happened to playing it cool?"

"The man with no teeth smiled at me."

"Well at least you know he doesn't bite," Alex said holding back a laugh. But she could tell that Piper didn't find any of it funny and got back to business. "Look, there's someone in back I have to talk to real quick. You can wait here."

"Okay but no," Piper said quickly.

Alex smiled, remembering that Piper was well outside of her comfort zone. And with no bullshit tech speak and computer to hide behind she was like a fish out of water. It was actually kind of cute.

"You'll be fine," she said, feeling that unexplainable soft spot for the blonde growing by another few inches.

"I know I will be. I'll also be fine going with you," Piper argued.

"Look, the lady I'm seeing... strangers tend to set her a little on edge."

"She'll get over it."

"Piper…" Alex sounded like she was starting to lose her patience but Piper didn't care. She set her jaw stubbornly against whatever Alex was about to throw at her. "I'll only be a minute. Order us a couple of drinks and I'll be back before they hit the table."

"We didn't discuss this in the plan. Nowhere in the plan does it say-"

"You want to talk about the plan? Let's talk about the plan," Alex said working hard to keep her voice down even though Kenny Rogers was falling into a full on bridge climax that meant she could have gotten away with shouting. "You agreed that we would do things my way."

"But-"

"This is that part, Piper. Just trust me okay?" Alex felt a little stupid saying it. Trust her. A complete stranger. A criminal, like Piper had pointed out just a few hours ago.

But somehow in this messed up web they found themselves, it didn't seem too farfetched to consider. After all, she had done the same thing in the beginning of all of this, when Piper had asked the same of her. Piper's eyes locked on hers and after a few seconds she nodded. It almost felt as if the blonde was looking for something the way she would stare at her sometimes, but Alex decided it was likely a power play. An attempt to assert her position as the leader of this little death wish operation. And like all the other times it happened, she chose not to dwell on it. Piper sat down and just as Alex was about to make her way to the back office, suddenly they weren't alone anymore.

"I would have hung the good curtains if I had known you were coming," said a woman with an affected Russian accent and a flash of hair so fiery red Piper knew instantly she was the one who ran the place.

She watched as Alex, for all her size on the tiny woman, got pulled into a crusher of a hug that she didn't try to fight off, light laughter muffled in Red's broad shoulder. And just as suddenly as the hug happened, it ended, the woman taking hold of Alex's arms and holding her out in front of her, inspecting her closely.

"You need to eat."

"Actually, I'm not that-"

"The kitchen's making up something. Sit." Red pushed Alex into a chair before she could respond and pulled up one for herself so she could join her at the table. "I'm going to wring Nicky's neck."

"Nicky didn't know," Alex jumped in quickly. "I didn't even know," she said with a chuckle and glanced over to Piper who was dumbfounded in her seat.

Red followed her gaze and came to rest on Piper as well, studying her closely. Piper shifted awkwardly. "Who's this?" Red asked Alex but the whole time kept looking at Piper.

A rush of outside noise burst into the space as the door swung open and a group of people poured in, their laughing and chatting drowning out the little bell. Red sized them up in less than a second and after deciding that they weren't worthy of her time, turned her attention back to Piper.

"Who are you?" This time she asked the question directly.

"Um… uh…" Piper stammered, unsure whether the circumstances called for an alias or not.

"Where is Nichols anyway?" Alex asked. She was leaning in her chair, one arm slung lazily over the back, looking like an average patron enjoying an average chat. Piper tried to mirror her relaxation but could feel the stiffness in her muscles protest.

"Probably on her way over here already," Red answered.

"You called her?"

"I didn't have to." She motioned over her shoulder and Alex and Piper both looked up to see the bartender staring at them.

"Great," Alex said shaking her head. "I was hoping to keep a low profile for a while."

She looked over to Piper and could feel her instant understanding. She knew. The countdown timer that was driving them forward on this mission just went into overdrive. It was something they hadn't accounted for – word of Alex's release getting out so soon. And if that word were to reach Kubra before they did…

"Boo likes to talk, yes, but she knows when to keep her mouth shut. Nicky's like your family, so she made the call."

Alex nodded slowly, trying to find some comfort in Red's words but failing miserably. She was screwed. There was no other way for this to play out. At least an hour ago there was a chance Piper would get what she wanted. Now though… unless something drastic happened in a very short space of time, the initial projected body count of one was likely to rise.

"Hey, you remember that creep Mendez?" Alex asked then, feeling an urgent need to move things along.

"Mendez? What are we talking about Mendez for?"

"I don't know, I just… I remember him coming around here a lot. Always played that Johnny Cash song on the jukebox over and over and over…"

"Hurt," Red said. "Drove me up the wall, that one."

"Yeah, that's it." Alex laughed again. Piper could tell it was a little forced. This was an angle then, and she was working it rather carefully. "One of the girls here danced at his club, right? What was her name… Maria? Marissa?"

The Russian's face grew stone cold. In a flash she went from warm nostalgia to ice. Piper's eyes darted from that to Alex and the way she was struggling to control her own expression, playing a straight face even though there was clearly something going on behind her eyes. Piper didn't know what was happening or how it was valuable to her plan, but the tension at the table was choking her.

"What are you doing?" Red asked, her voice low and laced with fear.

"Uh, making conversation," Alex replied innocently.

"Conversation," Red repeated the word, that initial fear slowly changing to something closer to anger. Only, Red never got angry. Anger was for the small time.

"Yes. It came up and I just asked if-"

"It didn't come up. You brought it up," Red interrupted and leaned in close to Alex. "You haven't seen me in years and of all the things to talk about, you ask about a girl who dances at a club owned by a man with Balik's cock so deep in his throat he's got Kubra cum dripping out of his ears. And three years was apparently all you needed to forget I wasn't born yesterday. So I'll ask you again… Alex, what the fuck are you doing… and who are you doing it for?" she ended, fixing Piper with a glare that could slay a fire-breathing dragon.


	5. Chapter 5

_Hi everyone! Thank you to all who left comments on the last chapter and also for the follows and favorites. I appreciate it. The story picks up a notch in this chapter. Very soon questions are going to be answered and I have left hints in every chapter (this one has the most so far). If you pick up on anything please leave it in the comments and I'll let you know if you are on the right track :)_

* * *

 **The Equation – Chapter 5**

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 **Saturday, May 25** **th** **, 2013**

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The enclosed space of the stuffy back office, Red and Nicky bearing down on her with question after question, it was starting to make Piper feel claustrophobic. The way she and Alex were dragged back there made her think of the one and only time she was sent to the Principal's office. Mr. Healy, her 6th Grade Math teacher, hadn't taken too kindly to Piper questioning his authority in front of the rest of the class or that she insisted he prove his ability to lead them on the topic by taking over the blackboard with a problem of her own and demanding that he solve it. Her father was called in and together with Principal Skinner, schooled Piper on the merits of subordination, how the world was organized into systems to make it work, and that people inside those systems were further organized into ranks. In order for a system to work, each part of that system – each person so to speak – had to recognize their rank and submit to it. Not challenge it or the ranks of others. She had asked who was in charge of assigning these ranks and Skinner said it was none of her concern. She said that since Mr. Healy was incapable of grasping basic theories and couldn't even solve the elementary problem she presented on the board, he should be reported and have his rank reviewed. This too was pointed out as being none of her concern. That was the day Piper's formal school career came to an end. It was also the day she came face to face with the irrational logic that governed the world in which she found herself. And realized that where she found herself was a world in which she would never belong. She was seven.

She felt a warm hand close on hers and knew without looking that it belonged to Alex. Alex… sitting beside her on the threadbare couch with springs that were successfully making their way through the final layer of fabric. Alex… probably noticing how tense Red's line of questioning was making her… gently calling an end to the piano piece she was playing out on her knee… Alex in that jacket that amazingly still smelled faintly of vanilla…

Piper stood up quickly and replaced her anxious fidgeting with anxious pacing instead. She could feel them watching her, like the crowd at a game of tennis, following her movements from one end of the tiny office to the other. She pulled up her hood and folded her arms tightly across her chest, her feet not slowing down.

"Not a great time to check out, Blondie," Nicky said, perched on the edge of Red's desk in her little black dress and impressive mane of blonde curls.

"Leave her alone."

Alex's words – the tone she used to make them sound like a command – it made the tiny hairs on the back of Piper's neck stand up. Enough to make her pause in her pacing but only until she remembered where they were and what could possibly lay ahead for them. Then she started right back up again.

"I'm just saying," Nicky went on, clearly put out by Piper's behavior.

"And I'm telling you to lay off." Alex stood up too, positioning herself between Piper and the team of Red and Nicky. "She's not checking out, she's just..." Alex faltered and looked back at Piper. Still pacing and still basically ignoring the rest of them.

Alex remembered Cal telling her before that people weren't exactly Piper's strong point. This was her first real taste of that. Not once did she make the mistake of underestimating Kubra and what he was capable of. Now though, a scary thought crept into the back of her mind. Did she make a mistake to overestimate Piper?

"It's not much of a plan," Red said with a contemplative sigh and sat down in her chair, removing her glasses to fall onto her chest where they dangled from their little blue string.

"It's a good plan," came Piper's voice from behind Alex. It was like she said it to herself more than them. "All axioms considered, every eventuality accounted for and plotted to concur with-"

"Easy there, Rainman, we don't want you popping a vein over there," Nicky said with a cheeky grin, and met Alex's warning glare with a jacking-off motion. She didn't give a shit.

But neither did Piper. There wasn't time to be offended when months of her hard work was hanging in the balance. She marched over to the tattered couch and at first it looked like she was going to throw herself on it the way she lunged forward, but it soon became clear that what she was doing was pulling the thing forward. Out of the way. Because once she had slid the piece of furniture a few feet across the floor, Piper clambered over it with surprising agility and went straight for the window it had been blocking off. Then, pulling a marker out of her pocket, she went to work right there on the pane of glass.

"What do you think you're doing?" Red exclaimed and stood up, fixing Alex with a reprimanding look, giving her all the responsibility of Piper's behavior.

Nicky burst out laughing. "Where did you find this one, Vause? She's something else."

She found me, Alex thought helplessly, and watched as Piper's illegible scrawl started to steadily fill the glass with what she knew was some kind of math, but for all she understood it could've been ancient hieroglyphics. The black ink barely visible against the backdrop of night that pressed up against the window. She was at it again. A similar thing happened in the basement earlier that day when Piper would go off into her own world of equations but despite the unsettling coil twisting in Alex's stomach, she figured it was better to leave Piper at that window than to force her back into the present company. Maybe it was her safe place and would help her to focus. Alex knew the value in a safe place. Her fingertips picked at the edging of her jeans pocket, wanting the thing inside it, but she snapped them back the second she felt that familiar cramping feeling close on her chest.

"I need to get to the club," she said with renewed urgency.

"I don't advise it," Red replied.

"I have to see the girl," Alex went on, ignoring Red. "I'm sure she can tip me off about where he's holing up."

"It's a long shot," Nicky chimed in. "She's nobody in there."

"Nobodies are the best people for information," Red said then. "They see and hear everything because no-one sees or hears them."

"Exactly," Alex said.

"Okay," Nicky nodded her understanding, "but it still doesn't make the plan any good. You find out where he is, assume that's also where he's holding the guy you were sprung from prison to save, and then what? Go in and get him?"

"Nicky's right," Red said, and rubbed her temples where a flaring headache was starting to throb. "It's a joke."

Alex looked over her shoulder to where Piper was still going at it, more than half the window now covered in symbols and numbers. Once she was satisfied the blonde was wrapped in her little math bubble and couldn't hear them, she went on.

"Look, I know she's a little… strange. But she's freakishly smart. And she says she has a plan. He won't be there when we go in." Alex didn't feel very convinced and it showed. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

"Maybe he won't, but some of his guys will be there for sure. Big fucking brawlers of men, Vause," Nicky said. "How are the two of you a match for even one of them?"

Alex didn't answer. The more she answered their questions, the more she felt like she and Piper were way out of their depth.

"Why are you doing this?" Red asked, her voice deliberately low to keep it from traveling over to the window side of her office.

Alex shook her head slowly as she thought of what to say, a little creeped out by the fact that the second Red asked her that, she was asking herself the same thing in her head. Because how the fuck did everything get so messed up so fast? She was supposed to be in the background. A silent partner to Piper's bold taking on of Kubra. She wasn't supposed to even care. But then she was dragging Piper out of that basement and unwittingly deeper into the web she swore she would stay away from.

"Is she blackmailing you?" Red pushed. Alex shook her head again, more definitively than before. "If you need my help-"

"You don't have to trust her," Alex said. "I'm not asking you to. But you trust me, right?" Red remained tightlipped but gave a stiff nod. "Everything's under control."

Now Red moved from behind her desk and came to stand in front of Alex. "I trust you. Because I know you. And because I know you Alex, I can see that things are definitely not under control."

Alex dropped her eyes to the tatty carpet underfoot. Trying to hide all the uncertainty she was feeling and anything else that seemed to be giving her away with Red.

"How often do Kubra's connections frequent this establishment?"

Red, Alex and Nicky all turned to look at Piper then. She had finally stopped scribbling on the window and fixed her gaze on Red in a kind of lockdown, waiting for an answer.

"All the time," Red said with a shrug. "In business I don't discriminate as long as they leave _their_ business outside."

"The place was practically empty when we got here though," Alex said. "So I wouldn't-"

"Practically empty isn't empty," Piper interrupted, snapping the cap back onto the marker before burying it in her pocket again. "My original plan was good because it had the lowest possible risk factor with the best possible outcome," she said, walking over to group of women. "I had created a closed system that allowed me to postulate-"

"English, if you don't mind," Nicky chirped.

Piper glowered at Nicky, took a breath, and continued. "In Math you have a problem, an equation with variables, and by following certain rules, you can then solve the problem. In this case I had worked it down to the least amount of variables in order to achieve my goal of getting out of this thing with the lives of my fiancé, Larry, and me-"

"And me," Alex clipped and Piper stared at her puzzled. "I'm guessing my life was somewhere in your equation too. Your fiancé Larry, you, and me…"

Piper looked up at her and blinked, and after a second nodded slowly. "Of course," she said and looked away.

"Humphrey," Red said with alarm in her voice, like it only just occurred to her. It was bad enough to get everyone's attention.

"What about him?" Nicky asked.

"The group that came in earlier, when I came out to sit with you…" she said to Alex, "…it was him. He was there."

"So what? Who's this Humphrey guy? Do we need to be worried about him?" Alex asked, the questions tumbling out of her mouth in a nervous ramble.

Red was silent a while, thinking. Humphrey was new in Kubra's ranks. New but eager. In just a few months his ass-kissing had helped him work his way up and if he knew about Alex, and he knew what it meant to Kubra to have her…

"Nicky, go see if he's still here. The big group at the bar."

Nicky didn't hesitate and slid off Red's desk to follow through with the order.

"I'm sure it's nothing," she said and disappeared behind the office door. But her words brought little comfort to Alex.

If his presence was enough to make Red uncomfortable, then it had to be more than nothing. She turned to Piper then.

"So what's all this?" she asked, pointing to the window.

Piper nodded, picking up on the fact that Alex was probably trying to distract her more than gain understanding of her working but she went with it. Distraction right now couldn't hurt.

"I was trying to pinpoint the altered cause and effect parallels we put in action by being here," Piper said as she walked back over to the window. "You see, by coming out here tonight I deviated from the original plan, introducing several new variables which consequently made a stable equation an unstable one."

Red and Alex shared a look. Each was as lost as the other.

"Variables?" Red asked, a deep frown creasing her forehead the way she was trying to concentrate.

"Variables," Piper repeated. "I'm a variable, you are variables…" She pointed to the two of them. "…and the more variables there are, the harder it is to solve a problem. What's worse-"

"It gets worse?" Alex said, half joking, half serious.

"When the variables are humans with agency – that means I have no control over you – my ability to predict outcomes breaks down entirely. Here…" She turned back to the window and using the marker, started drawing straight lines branching out from various points between the litter of symbols and numbers. "Kubra finds out about Alex," she said as she drew a line, "he comes for her and kills her. That's one. Kubra finds out Alex is helping me," she drew another line, "he kills Larry, and then me and Alex. Another." Piper seemed to be getting more and more worked up the further she went with her explanation. Pressing harder on the marker so that it squeaked along the glass. "Kubra thinks Red is colluding with us-" her voice started to shake, she drew another line. "There are too many variables, too many possibilities to consider and plan for, it's just… it's too much." Her voice cracked. She stepped back from the window and looked at the tangle of symbols and spiked lines indicating either her death or someone else's. "There's no way that I- to create an entire new- that contains every single- so that everyone comes out of this- I can't… I can't do it… I can't have so many lives depending on me in this-"

She felt a strong hand on her shoulder that made her turn away from the window and the math that was silent but buzzing like a chainsaw in her head. And then Alex took her face in both her hands, forcing Piper to look at her. The second her eyes landed on the deep greens of Alex, Piper felt her heart begin to slow back down. Her hands that were twisting the marker both relaxed and she used them instead to hold on to Alex, the marker falling to the floor with a light thud. Alex's eyes were like the tide – pulling her in. And in a world she didn't belong, in a place she didn't feel safe, Alex gave her both those things with nothing more than a look.

"Hey," Alex said, her eyes searching Piper's like she was trying to find her in there somewhere. "None of this is on you, you hear me? Whatever happens… it's because of him. Not you."

It was enough. Piper remembered why she was doing this. Dangerous and life-threatening was all relative in the bigger scheme of things. She calmed down almost instantly, savoring the feel of Alex's breath that tickled her neck when she spoke, the warmth of Alex's hands that seeped under her skin to spread to every part of her body… Time could be a funny thing. One minute feeling like there just wasn't enough of it, others over in the blink of an eye. Somehow this moment with Alex felt like it was both – forever and fleeting – all at once.

Just then Nicky burst in, a little out of breath. "Bad news is… Humps is gone." Alex let go of Piper, a chill running down her spine. "Good news… he probably just had enough and went home to sleep it off."

"Unlikely," Alex said, sharing a look with Piper that told her the blonde felt the same.

The jig was up. She was no longer a secret, a shadow, Piper's anonymous ex-insider. They were now zero steps ahead of a man who had a hit list with her name on it because she flipped on him. What would he do once he found out she did it again?

"The back door. Now." Red pushed past them, shoving Nicky aside, and led the way.

Alex grabbed Piper's hand – her adrenaline spiking despite her best efforts – and together they followed Red out of the office and down the long passageway that led back into the bar. But instead of going in, Red led them into a sharp right and burst into the kitchen, the swing doors swaying madly in their wake. The frenzy of cooks made the chaos in Piper's head ring even louder and she tightened her grip on Alex's hand. When she felt the brunette return the sentiment with a squeeze, her hammering heart leapt – but in a good way – before simmering down just a bit. Things may be going south from this point but at least she didn't have to navigate the storm on her own.

"I need time to get ears on the street," Red said, turning to them. "Do you have somewhere safe to go until I reach you?"

Alex looked at Piper. There was nowhere she could think of. They'd seized every last thing she owned when she went to prison, including all of her properties. Her heart sunk suddenly. If by some miracle she got out of this and by another miracle Piper managed to deliver on her promise to make her disappear – starting over from scratch was going to be a bitch. But that was a concern for the future. Right now the next few hours was a bigger concern because they would determine whether she even had a future.

"We have somewhere," Piper said.

"Good," Red said with an approving nod, ushering them through the various prep stations in the cramped kitchen. "Stay there until you hear from me." The back door came into view and she pushed them toward it.

"But-" Alex wanted to argue.

"Go!"

Red slammed the door in her face causing her to stumble down the two steps that led to it, pushing Piper along with her.

"You okay?" she asked when she found her footing.

Piper nodded, taking in their new surroundings in the dark alley, thinking just how much time was left on the clock that wouldn't stop running down. And if that time even mattered now anyway…

"I hope you weren't thinking of your place when you said-"

"No," Piper shook her head, "there's somewhere else. Somewhere he doesn't know. I hope." She added with a little dismay.

"Good," Alex said. "Go there and lay low, and we can meet up tomorrow first thing. You know the coffee shop at-"

"What? What are you talking about, meet up? Where are you going to be?" She didn't like this. She didn't like that look in Alex's eye. Even in the dark it was clear she was thinking the unthinkable.

Alex straightened, digging her hands into her pockets. If their luck had indeed run out and Kubra was on her trail they didn't have much time. If any move was going to be made, it had to be now.

"I'm going to the club," she said, half expecting the reaction she was going to get and so she wasn't at all surprised when Piper very nearly flipped.

"You're kidding, right? He could know by now. He could have people looking out for you."

"This is my window, Piper. Right now he might know I'm out, but he doesn't yet know about you – that you're planning anything. He probably doesn't yet know that I'm helping you. This is the one chance I get to find out for sure where he's staying, where your boy could be… It has to be tonight. It has to be now."

It felt like a fire was lit in her belly and it wasn't going to die until she did what she had to do. Alex knew she probably didn't have to be running into the eye of the storm right now since this wasn't her battle to fight, but she would die rather than sit and wait for him to find her. She would die rather than do nothing. If she was going to go out, she was going to do it on her terms.

"You're risking everything," Piper shook her head. "I won't let you do that. That wasn't the deal."

"What do you care?" Alex burst out impatiently.

It felt like those words were a slap across her face, but Piper didn't let it show. She pulled up straight, shoulders square and chin out. "Well you're in my charge and I veto your decision."

"You what?" Alex asked in disbelief.

"It means I-"

"I know what the fuck veto means, Piper," she snapped. "What I'm not too clear on is where the hell you get off vetoing me in the first place."

"You were only released because of me, and there were strict terms to your arrangement."

"Are you fucking kidding me? This works out in your favor. What are you even-"

"Exactly. This is for my benefit. I should be the one to go."

Alex laughed. "You? You're going to go shake down people you don't even know for information about a man who's probably watching you like a hawk?" Piper didn't respond. She knew Alex had a point. "Also, it's a club. It's cramped. Lots of people…" Alex studied her, knowing exactly which buttons she was pushing. "Over-friendly strippers who will probably be all over you the second you-"

"Okay fine," Piper finally gave in.

"That's what I thought," Alex said with a satisfied smile.

"So are you going to stand there and be smug some more or are we going to do this?"

Alex relaxed with the small victory she just won and started out the alley, but then Piper's words sunk in and she turned – only to find Piper walking right beside her. "Wait, what do you mean _we_?"

"I'm coming with you."

"I just told you if anyone sees you there, it's-"

"The longer we stand here the more time he has to figure things out and I'm not letting you go alone so get over it." Piper held Alex's gaze, using every ounce of stubbornness she had in her. She wasn't about to back down.

Alex shook her head slowly as she studied Piper. She really was infuriatingly stubborn. But she was also right – they didn't have time to waste.

"Stay back, stick to the shadows, and let me do all the talking."

Piper nodded briskly and with that she and Alex set off out of the alley and into the night. Adrenaline pumping strong and constant through each of them, just enough to keep them moving forward despite what lay ahead. Just enough to ignore the nagging whisper of certain death nipping at their backs.


	6. Chapter 6

_Hi everyone! Wow. Some of the comments on the last chapter blew my mind. You guys are awesome and thank you!_

* * *

 **The Equation – Chapter 6**

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 **Saturday, May 25** **th** **, 2013**

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It was just after 11pm and the city was in the final stages of waking up. A yawn – lights from the restaurants and bars segmented the sidewalks in splashes of dull amber, as if dressing them up from the dreary cracked gray ensemble they were forced to wear in the light of day. A stretch – the muggy night air expanded and contracted with conversation and light music that got heavy when they passed a bar or club. Fading back to indistinguishable hums as they moved past. A rubbing of sleepy eyes – the constant whoosh of city cabs doing their bit to keep the wheel of human party traffic turning. Saturday night in the city. With Piper and Alex determinedly cutting through it.

The club wasn't far so they went on foot. Piper had suggested a cab but Alex pointed out that the activity on the street gave the perfect cover. They could blend in easily. Piper guessed it was likely another way for Alex to savor her newfound freedom. She wasn't going to object to that. Even with people bumping into her every now and again, making her cringe at the blatant disregard for personal space. Just the look on Alex's face was enough to give Piper the will to suck it up. It wasn't a walk that would last forever anyway.

Alex weaved through people milling about, walking confidently, even stopping every now and again to take in her surroundings. She knew they had somewhere to be but it was like she just couldn't help herself. It was too long since she smelled the city at night. She traveled a lot while working for Kubra but coming home was always the same. The same old city with its same old haunts waiting to welcome her back. And if this was going to be the last time she had the freedom to walk through it this way, then she might as well savor it. A surprising twinge of sadness tugged at her then. The idea that this place that used to be home now felt so strange to her. Like everything was the same but somehow she didn't belong. Because she wasn't the same anymore.

Piper watched Alex closely, following just a step or two behind. The brunette would go from quick, long strides to standing completely still when something caught her attention. Perhaps a young couple laughing, a group of friends sharing drinks and loudly discussing their plans for the rest of the night, a scuffle between a current and an ex… Alex played it down, of course. Would continue on her way without saying anything. But Piper didn't miss the shadow that passed over Alex's features even though she was pretty quick in fixing her expression into a blank canvas that gave nothing away. Like a kind of grief or mourning for the time she lost in prison, Piper thought. And then she thought that maybe it was also a kind of mourning for the time she could possibly lose if Kubra got his way. A few times she felt the strongest urge to say something. The right words that would make Alex feel better. But each time it happened, Piper reasoned her way out of it. The time for talking would still come. It wasn't now.

Alex finally slowed to a casual stroll and Piper came up beside her, feeling the lazy bassline thrumming ripples into the air around her before she actually laid eyes on the strip club it was coming from.

"Is that it?" Piper asked, motioning to the blinking neon lights across the street.

Alex didn't say anything. She scoped the area like someone looking for a friend as opposed to someone looking for any possible threat to her life. She was good at that – keeping a cool exterior. Being a good liar was a huge part of her success in her life as one of Kubra's most successful agents. Giving the impression that you're something you're not came easily to her. Like a reflex. No need to show people just how hard her heart was slamming in her chest.

"Okay, when we get inside," Alex said, "I want you to go straight to the bar and order a drink."

"You want to split up?"

Alex nodded. "I'm going to try and find the girl. You need to watch out for anyone who looks like they're paying too much attention to me."

"That's stupid."

"What?" Alex looked at her surprised.

"What am I supposed to if I find that person?" Piper asked. "Take him down with my mad Krav Maga skills?"

"You know Krav Maga?" Alex asked, both surprised and impressed.

"No I don't know Krav Maga," Piper said, sounding exasperated. "Why would I-…? I have like two months of Aikido but that's neither here nor there. My point is… Your plan is no good. I suggest we find an alternative."

Alex was smiling. Flustered Piper was all kinds of adorable. She allowed herself the few seconds it took to appreciate that despite the circumstances in which they found themselves. For those few seconds she was just a regular chick standing on a sidewalk with a woman who was inexplicably getting the better of her. There was really no rational explanation for it. She didn't know Piper, had spent less than two days in her company, and yet…

"Look, I'm not saying you have to fight anyone," Alex said.

"What are you saying then?"

"I'm saying… if someone looks like they're about to come at me… create a diversion," Alex replied with a shrug. Plain and simple. Easy peasy.

"Sorry, I left my smoke bombs in my other jacket," Piper deadpanned. She wasn't liking this.

"Speaking of which…" Alex said and eyed Piper's hoodie uncertainly. It made Piper hug the garment closer.

"What?" she asked. Her security blanket under threat.

"You can't go in there wearing that thing. And take your hair down," Alex added. "That ponytail makes you look way too young."

"But-"

"We don't want any unwanted attention, right?" Alex reasoned. "I'm trying to help you."

Piper sighed heavily. She knew Alex was right, she just didn't like having to admit it. She unzipped her hoodie without another word and shrugged it off. The balmy night air licked her bare arms, causing a short burst of gooseflesh as her skin got used to the freshness. One shoulder of her old, faded Death Star t-shirt slipped down, revealing the black lacy strap of her bra. She self-consciously pulled it back up, painfully aware of Alex's eyes glued to her every move. Ripping out her hair tie, Piper used her fingers to fluff out the evidence of the ponytail that apparently took her back in time.

"Better?" Piper asked, fixing Alex with a look that conveyed just how much she didn't like what she was being made to do.

The expression on Alex's face was unreadable. Not what Piper was expecting. And what exactly was she expecting? For Alex to be smirking at her? Ready to tease her about something? It wasn't that. It was something else entirely that Alex quickly covered up when she was caught off guard with Piper suddenly looking up. Now Alex was seemingly very interested in something across the street.

"Let's go," Alex said simply and started toward the club. Piper followed.

* * *

Inside the bar, the muted sound of music that had filtered out to Piper before now filled her head to the point where it was impossible to make out anything else. She saw people – mouths moving in conversation or open in laughter – but none of it reached her. The song was something hip hop. She didn't know it. But the red haired beauty currently at the center of the stage in nothing but a white g-string knew it well. So much so she felt the need to remove that last bit of dignity entirely. Piper snapped her head in another direction – the bar – and made her feet start walking.

Alex had veered away from her right as they walked in. Giving her a final wink before disappearing. The place wasn't packed but it was full enough for Piper to feel that they could actually pull this off. If they didn't spend too much time in there, it was possible that they could get in and out without the wrong people noticing. She felt a slight flutter in her belly at the idea of it. Something going her way for once after so much of it didn't.

"Still water please," Piper said when the bartender walked by to slide a whiskey to the patron beside her.

The bartender – a slender, brown haired woman, in black leather pants and a black vest with silver studs along the arm holes – gave her a funny look and shook her head before turning away without a word. Piper kicked herself. Only just realizing that ordering water in a place like this was probably not a good way to go unnoticed. But she was a lightweight when it came to alcohol and this wasn't exactly the time for her to be compromised.

"Water?"

Piper looked over. It was the whiskey person. A gorgeous woman with a sickeningly gorgeous smile. The woman edged closer to Piper and dipped her head, causing her short dark hair to cover her features. It only added to her natural air of allure.

"You don't look like a still water," the stranger said with a thick accent. Likely Australian, Piper decided. But with the loud music it was hard to be sure.

"What do I look like?" Piper asked and immediately regretted it. It was probably not a good idea to engage. She didn't want to be memorable to anyone in case they were later questioned. Too late.

The beautiful stranger smiled, a twinkle in her eye, and took a sip of her whiskey. She was also without sleeves. A white strappy shirt that clung to her in all the right places, matched with a pair of torn blue jeans that looked like they were painted on.

"You look like the opposite," the woman said eventually and winked.

"Water."

Piper looked up, grateful for the bartender showing up when she did. She dug in her jeans pocket to pay as the bartender put the bottle of water down in front of her.

"Holy shit."

Piper's hand froze, her heart, everything… the tone of shock in the bartender's voice setting off all her alarm bells. But the bartender wasn't looking at her. Her eyes were on something else at the other end of the bar on Piper's left. Piper followed her gaze and her stomach flipped over. By the time she grappled control over her racing mind the bartender was already making her way through the hatch around the front of the bar.

The water in front of her was forgotten, the money in her pocket didn't exist. Piper watched as the bartender, a wide grin on her face, walked up to Alex saying words she couldn't make out over the music. Alex was smiling too. Saying something too. And then… and then… A deep hot flush crept up Piper's neck and flooded her face as she watched the bartender grab a fistful of Alex's t-shirt – right by her chest – and pull her into a kiss. It wasn't the kind of kiss you give an old friend who you haven't seen in a long time. It was… the opposite. Piper swallowed.

"You know her?"

Piper blinked a few times and focused on the woman beside her. Her mind racing but trying hard not to show it. She shook her head quickly no.

"But you wanted to know her, right?" the woman said. "I get it. She's hot. Hot but taken by the looks of it."

Piper didn't want to look. She steeled herself against the wave of feelings that were crashing in her chest at that moment and took a sip of her water.

"I'm not though," the woman was still going on. "Taken, that is. What do you say we get you a real drink and find a more comfortable spot too?"

Too? Piper frowned at her and then glanced over to Alex. Her face was no longer attached to the bartender's, who was signaling her partner to cover for her as she led Alex away. Clutching onto her hand like it meant something to her. Going to a more comfortable spot apparently.

"I'm engaged," Piper said dismissively when she turned back to the woman at her side, nursing her bottle of water and wondering if she should even stay there anymore.

"No," the woman said with exaggerated disappointment. "Well, she's a lucky girl."

Piper looked at her. The assumption that she was engaged to a woman taking her a little by surprise. But seeing as how this was a stranger, Piper didn't feel the need to duck and hide. To spin any kind of story. The relief was welcome after the past two days. And as that realization dawned on her, all the reasons for where she was and what she was doing floated to the top of Piper's mind. She smiled softly.

"I'm the lucky one," she said in all sincerity.

* * *

It was after 1am when they eventually emerged from the club, Piper's lungs embracing the fresh air as they took off on a brisk walk. Taking care to keep to the side streets and back alleys. A walk that was silent apart from Alex asking if she was okay when they stepped out of the place and her saying that yes she was fine even though right then she really wasn't. It was quieter than before. Less people outside, less traffic. More space for Piper to hear the noise in her head. She wasn't enjoying it in the slightest.

"Here," Alex said all of a sudden and grabbed hold of Piper's arm, pulling her off the street to cut into a small alley between a pawn shop and a Chinese take-out joint.

Once they had gone a few paces, Piper took her arm back and the two continued walking side by side.

"Maritza wasn't dancing tonight," Alex said, looking around one last time to make sure they were alone. The shadows hid everything really well and that comforted her. It meant that she and Piper were well hidden too. "But it worked out anyway," she went on. "Sylvie could tell me everything I wanted to know."

Sylvie. The bartender. Piper felt the muscles in her neck tense up. "I'm surprised she could enunciate at all with her tongue that far down your throat." The words were out of Piper's mouth before she even knew she was thinking them.

Alex took a beat and slowed down, eyeing Piper curiously. "What's happening?" she asked, a hint of playfulness in her voice. She was very good at reading people and did she just detect the slightest bit of jealousy from Piper?

"Nothing. Forget it," Piper quickly killed the topic and picked the pace back up. "What did she have to say? Does she know where Kubra is?"

"What's it to you whose tongue I have in my mouth anyway?" Alex asked, not in the least bit interested in letting Piper off the hook so easily.

Piper shook her head. "Can we move on?"

"You started it," Alex said and bit back a laugh.

Piper knew Alex was taunting her. Could feel her smile even though she made work of not looking at the brunette. She thought about Alex's face once she knew the truth. Would she be smiling then? Would she even believe her?

"Did it bother you?" Alex asked, still going.

"Don't be ridiculous," Piper said, hating herself for bringing it up in the first place.

"You're right. I'm being ridiculous. You're engaged. Why would it bother you…" Alex said with a sarcastic air to her tone that she knew was pushing all the right buttons.

Piper pursed her lips, set her jaw and continued walking while looking straight ahead. Eventually her stonewall silence made Alex feel bad.

"Hey…" she nudged Piper with her shoulder, making her veer off to the side a little. "I got some great intel if you're interested in that instead of some blast from the past ex." Her voice was soft. Maybe apologetic? Maybe. Why… she couldn't say. Just like a lot of stuff she felt about Piper that she couldn't explain.

Piper tried to fight off the smile that was starting to creep onto her face. Bit her lip against it. But it was there before she knew it.

Alex laughed softly. "That's what I thought."

A loud clatter just a foot or two in front of them caused them both to stop dead. Ears and eyes trained hard into the darkness, hardly breathing. All Piper could hear was her own heart pounding. A cat's shrill screech echoed and a shabby ginger leapt out of the shadows on Piper's left, making her practically jump into Alex's arms. They watched the feline clamber up the fire escape overhead and when it disappeared they both let out a huge sigh of relief. Feeling silly and at the same time on edge about just how jumpy they both were.

"Fucking cat," Alex said with a nervous laugh and then looked down to find that she was holding onto Piper just as much as she was being held onto. "You smell nice," she said. Not sure where the words came from or why they came at all. Only that it felt right to say them at the time.

Piper didn't meet her eyes as she unhinged herself from Alex's arms. "I'm ready to call it a night," she said. "Being out here is starting to creep me-"

"No."

Piper looked at Alex, ready to argue all the reasons why they should get off the streets. Not believing that after everything, Alex still wanted to hang around. But the eyes she met when looking up were wide with alarm. And before she could turn to see what exactly it was that had Alex so spooked, she felt two powerful hands grip her arms, pulling them painfully to the back and limiting any kind of movement. Piper cried out but the more she struggled, the tighter the grip became.

"Leave her alone," Alex said, her usual cocky confidence replaced with a fear that terrified Piper.

"Al…" she whimpered.

Three men appeared from somewhere behind her and advanced on Alex, who stumbled two steps back for every step forward they took. Until she was pressed right up against the cold brick wall of the Chinese take-out place. Piper's heart sank as she realized that she wasn't a target here. She was merely being kept out of the way so that the other guys could get to Alex.

Two of them – big, brawlers of men – took up a side and grabbed hold of Alex's arms, spreading her open and vulnerable for the third guy. He wasn't as big as they were but he didn't need to be. They were the ones doing all the hard work. He approached Alex slowly, a sickening half smile on his face that made her skin crawl. It had to be the Humphrey guy Red warned them about. Kubra's loyal soldier. Looking like a rabid dog ready to take a bite. Alex fought hopelessly against her human restraints.

But it was no use.


	7. Chapter 7

_Hi everyone! As I'm getting closer to wrapping up this weird dream fic idea I just wanted to thank all of you for sticking with it, and as always thank you for your lovely comments. You're awesome 3_

* * *

 **The Equation – Chapter 7**

* * *

 **/**

 **Sunday, May 26** **th** **, 2013**

 **/**

She had been so careful. So very careful.

Two months tomorrow.

Of trying and failing. Of trying and not being good enough. How much more?

How much longer could this go on?

It was like the night had created a vacuum in that alley. Like they slipped through a wormhole where everything that happened was always the worst version of all possible scenarios. Where if they found themselves in a dark alley, that would be the moment they were attacked by more men than they could defend themselves against. And those men wouldn't just be men – they would belong to Kubra. And in a city that was so wide awake just an hour before, it would be eerily still. No sidewalk chatter. Or curious passersby. Help wasn't coming.

A determined growl tore from Piper's throat as she started thrashing her body with more urgency than ever. Her faceless assailant swore under his breath. It was becoming near impossible to keep a solid grip on her.

"Let. me. _go_! Alex!" her voice rang out. Bouncing off the bare brick walls closing them in. Off a helpless Alex who could do nothing but watch.

"Shut her up," Humphrey said calmly without turning around and in a flash a gloved hand pressed against Piper's mouth.

She screamed. But the strangled sound barely penetrated the thick black leather that imprisoned it.

"Leave her out of this," Alex warned and promptly got the wind knocked out of her by the guy on her left.

His fist was like a truck to her abdomen and if she weren't being held up, would've doubled over right then. She coughed and spluttered, her eyes tearing up.

"Hi Alex," Humphrey said brightly, standing so close her panting breath played up in his hair. "You don't know me, but you do know the man I work for."

"Fuck you."

He slapped her.

The force of his gloved hand sending her head and hair sweeping to the side. Her glasses flying off somewhere into the shadows. Alex gritted her teeth through the sting of tears and his hand.

Piper screamed again, her legs gave in but her assailant made sure she stayed up – his immense strength working for them both. She blinked her eyes dry. Alex's head hung for a few seconds before she straightened again, a stony expression on her face, her eyes like glinting steel, her cheek a raging sweltering red.

"You've been busy, Alex," Humphrey said. "Making the rounds, asking a lot of questions… Did you really think he wouldn't notice?" He shook his head like a father disappointed in his child. He lifted a hand to stroke her cheek and Alex stretched to avoid it. "No, no, I won't hurt you. I didn't want to hurt you," he said in all innocence.

Alex squeezed her eyes shut at the touch of the cool leather against her burning face. At the sound of Piper's muffled cries behind him.

"What are you up to? And that's not me asking," he said. "I'm sure you're aware that I'm just a messenger here."

Alex said nothing. Glowered at him. Her chest heaving and throat burning with the effort it was taking to keep her tears from falling. He wasn't going to get that from her.

He slapped her again. Harder. This time on the other cheek.

Piper freaked out again. Flailing wildly against the lock she was held in. She felt pressure behind her one knee. A kick. And sank to the ground. She took in a huge gulp of air as the hand that was covering her mouth disappeared but just as she was building up to cry out again, she was struck on the back of her head and pushed flat down, an insanely strong hand grinding her face into the dirt and stone. She grunted and gasped for air. His full weight crushing her. Knees digging into her back. There was nothing she could do. Nowhere to go. No way to help.

Alex's voice was hoarse as it ripped out of her throat. "If you fucking hurt her…!"

She took another blow to her abdomen for it.

"She should be the last of your concerns, Alex," Humphrey said.

And where Piper was nothing more than an inconvenient obstacle before, Alex's interest in her piqued his own interest. He turned and walked over to where she was still hopelessly struggling in the deathly grip of his colleague.

"I know your face…" he muttered under his breath, studying her closely. Piper's legs turned to liquid and her heart sank. "Why do I know your face?"

"Hey!" Alex called, her only goal to get him away from Piper. "You said you had a message for me, asshole."

Humphrey held up his hand to quiet her, not taking his eyes off Piper. "Who are you?" he asked, but not really posing the question to Piper. She couldn't answer anyway, her mouth still tightly covered.

He took a forefinger and lightly brushed a strand of hair from where it had fallen over her eyes. The gesture was a gentle one but coming from the likes of him it sent a chill down Piper's spine. The bile rose to her throat and burned the rawness of it. Alex took that moment to look away. She couldn't stand it either.

A slow, sick smile of realization grew on his face then. "Holy shit."

Alex wrenched against the painful hold on her arms. "Hey fucker, if you don't mind… can we get this over with? There's somewhere I have to be."

Humphrey turned to her still smiling, his eyes twinkling in the dark. "Well well well… now this is unexpected." The ground crunched under his feet as he slowly sauntered back to the wall Alex was pinned against. "You and the mad scientist… oh the boss is going to find this very, very… _very_ interesting." He cocked his head to the side, chuckling softly. So fucking proud of himself.

Alex glanced over his shoulder to Piper a few feet behind him. She wasn't struggling anymore. She just stood there looking at Alex. Her eyes wide with fear. Back in Red's office Piper talked them through the consequences of their actions. It hit Alex like a fist to the face. That all those symbols and numbers were currently becoming reality right there in that alley.

"This is more than enough," Humphrey said. "He'll be really happy with it. But you know what'll make him happier? What'll work out great for me? If you tell me what the fuck is going on. What are you up to?"

Alex met Piper's eyes. It was only a second. A flash. And in that flash was a stream of communication sent via some other worldly plane of consciousness. The game was officially changed now. The stakes infinitely higher. The clock that was ticking, counting down to Piper's eventual success or failure – that clock could just as well be thrown out the window. All bets were off.

"Don't," Humphrey said, picking up on the look they were sharing and stepped in front of Alex to block her view of Piper entirely. "I'm the one talking. You look at me. _Tell me_." He grabbed a fistful of her hair and whipped her head back.

Alex groaned against the painful stretch in her neck. The torturing grip on her arms. She could no longer hear Piper and the thought made her blood run cold.

"Fine…" Her voice was strained because of the unnatural angle of her throat, but there was a fire in her chest driving every syllable, "…you can tell your boss…" Humphrey leaned in, a sneer tilting up the corners of his lips. "…tell him I said you hit like a fucking girl."

Humphrey looked at her, disbelieving at first. That she could display this amount of balls in such a hopeless situation. Then he let go of her and started laughing. A high-pitched, stomach-churning cackle that fluttered over Alex's skin with razor sharp claws, causing gooseflesh to pop up all over. And then just as suddenly, his face dropped. And his right fist appeared out of nowhere to make contact with her jaw. Alex tried blinking the stars out of her eyes. She shook her head. Ears ringing and face on fire.

And then it came again.

This time closer to her temple. Making her head feel like it was filled with pounding cotton wool. Throbbing, expanding, contracting, and then repeating the cycle.

"You ready to play along now?" Humphrey asked. "I can go for days."

Arms stretched out to the sides, head hung listlessly, she resembled someone nailed to a cross. It took everything she had to lift her head. It swayed under the immense effort it was taking to keep it up. Somewhere far off she heard Piper struggling. Her lips, now swelling fast, moved slightly. Even in the quiet sanctum of the shadows her whisper was barely audible. Humphrey leaned in closer, his one ear almost touching her lips. A half smile tilted the corner of Alex's beaten and bloodied mouth. She was only too happy to repeat herself.

"Suck my dick."

Humphrey's head shot up and he glared at her. A fleeting look of confusion flashing across his face. Then Alex let rip. A substantial globule of bloody spit landing just under his left eye. Confusion turned to untethered rage as he quickly swiped at the gross deposit. Now she was the one laughing. A tired, sick excuse for a laugh that felt like a hundred boots kicking her in the ribs at the same time. But she committed. Because just the look on the asshole's face was so fucking worth it.

"Let her go," Humphrey ordered his goons. His voice strained so tight it sounded like it would snap. His face contorting and twisting into a living example of burning fury.

Alex felt the instant relief on her arms as they dropped to her sides. She quickly pressed her palms to the wall behind her to get some balance, realizing that her legs weren't the things holding her up this whole time. Humphrey gave her that. He gave her the seconds she needed to steady herself, swaying slightly with the wall as a kind of crutch.

And then he laid into her. Two balled iron fists in quick succession right to her middle.

Alex hit the cold hard ground in a sorry heap, using one arm to cover her head and the other to shield her torso that fielded driving kick after kick. The dull thud of his boot as it made contact. Over and over. The high-pitched strangled cries coming from somewhere to her left. The groans being thrust from her own mouth with every last breath as his foot drove into her. Again. And then again.

"Humps man that's enough." The voice came from right above Piper. Her thug was calling out to Humphrey. But Humphrey wasn't listening. She could hear Alex gagging and spluttering. Hear her body crunching under the blows. "He said rough her up a little man. That's enough!"

And then suddenly Piper could breathe. The cold night air rushing into her wide open lungs with urgency. She took it in. Huge gulps of it. Until she coughed and hacked from the shock of it. He was gone. She could hear the scuffle. Her guy trying to get Humphrey away from Alex. Their boots grinding dirt and stone under foot. Resonating in her ear that was still against it. She was free. But she couldn't move. She wanted to rush over to Alex. But couldn't. Piper pressed her eyes closed and snapped them open again when she realized that only made the swimming stars even worse. They were arguing now. It sounded like her thug was losing. She heard a hoarse cry from Alex. First really close and then farther away. She couldn't do nothing anymore. Piper took a breath so deep it burned and with shaky arms and legs, pushed herself up onto all fours.

"Alex…" She breathed her name.

Humphrey had pulled Alex up and was keeping her that way because her own legs wouldn't. When her head dropped to the back he would give her a violent jerk to bring it back, and when it fell listlessly to the side he'd give another jerk – messing her around like a ragdoll puppet. All the while with his guys trying unsuccessfully to talk him into letting her go. Piper couldn't bear it.

"You motherfucker," she said through clenched teeth. "Leave her the fuck. _alone!_ " That last word came out in a howl that was every bit of strength Piper could muster as she launched to her feet and flung herself at the master and his beaten up broken puppet.

She crashed into him, fingers and nails hitting his face and sinking in, a blood-curdling shriek driving them deep and dragging them so she could feel bits of him stick to her. Then her screams were mixed with his cries of pain and his hands came up to her face, pushing against it with full force. Alex was free. Most likely back on the ground now. But Piper didn't stop to look. She lifted her knee and felt it make sharp contact. Sharp enough to get Humphrey to double over, coughing and gagging. Strong hands took hold of her from behind and flung her aside like a wet Kleenex. Her back met the wall with a dull crack and she sunk to the ground. Breathless.

"Come on, man. We did what he asked. Stick around and all our asses are gonna get picked up."

A shuffling of boots on dirt. Black shapes in black shadow. Muttered curses promising to get them for this. And then they were gone. Piper watched the end of the alley half expecting them to appear again. To come back and finish what they started. But there was nothing. A lone cab drove by. A ringing bell signaled the opening of a door – the Chinese take-out – and disembodied voices laughed and talked their way onto the sidewalk. The door closed with a snap. Piper looked over to the dark, motionless mass on the ground a few feet from her. Two months tomorrow.

* * *

Everything hurt. Alex groaned. Afraid to open her eyes. Sure that when she did she would see that sickening smile. Those cold eyes.

 _You don't know me, but you do know the man I work for._

Something squeezed her hand. Someone. A touch her body seemed to recognize on a molecular level. Her eyes fluttered open and Piper's face swam into focus in front of her. Piper's face wide with fear and relief. Those big blue eyes that somehow managed to say so much without any words. Alex felt Piper try to remove her hand but it only made her hold on tighter. Piper let her, changing her mind about taking her hand back, and Alex relaxed.

The hazy edges around Piper slowly started to come into focus for Alex. She was somewhere she didn't know. Stretched out on a sofa. Covered with a throw that smelled faintly of lima beans. Was this the safe place Piper was talking about before? Through a small window Alex could see the graying break of early morning splattering through green branches. So only a few hours could have passed between then and now. That was good news. And she wasn't in a hospital. Better news.

She tried to speak but her voice wasn't there. Piper leaned in. Alex cleared her throat, and tried again. "Aikido, huh?"

Piper let out a light relieved laugh that soon became tears she was trying to hold back. She shook her head slowly. Hugged the blanket she had over her shoulders a little closer and swiped a rogue tear from her cheek.

"I'm sorry," Piper said.

"So you were the one who told him to come for me? Asshole." Alex tried to smile but the cut in her lip made even speaking painful. She was happy to see Piper do it though.

A memory of Piper's cries tried to push to the front of Alex's mind. How helpless she felt watching her get practically crushed by that guy. How she even cared about this woman she barely knew. Alex fought it back. They weren't in that alley anymore. They were safe. For now at least.

"I never should have let you go to that club. I should have-"

"Nobody lets me do anything," Alex said, her thumb absently stroking Piper's.

"Still…"

"It's done," Alex said with a little more conviction in her voice. It wasn't much because of her condition but it was noticeable. "We can't go back in time, so now we focus on what's next."

Piper dropped her eyes. Her teeth nipping at her lower lip.

"You got any more of that magic math?' Alex asked. "How are we going to get out of this one?"

Piper gave a small, tired laugh. "My 48 hours are up," she said, her lips trembling a little. "He said there'll be instructions. A trade…" her voice trailed off.

Alex nodded. She understood. No doubt Kubra's little minions went running back to tell him about her. And about the blonde woman she was with. It wouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out. Someone with his resources would be able to trace back Piper's connection with Alex all the way to her release. And Piper's fiancé? With everything Alex was unsure of, she was certain that Piper's window for a peaceful resolution had officially closed. There would be no further instructions. No trade. Because there would be nothing to trade for.

"This is good," Alex said then.

Piper studied her uncertainly. "It doesn't look like it from where I'm sitting." She tried not to, but her eyes picked out the purple splotches on Alex's face. The split lip. Mottled bruising along her jaw.

"Don't you get it?" Alex asked. "I put him on edge. And that's a good place for someone like him to be. Makes him vulnerable."

Piper wasn't so sure. He didn't seem very vulnerable. With his army of loyal minions happy to do his bidding. If only he would get his own hands dirty. Come out in the open so she could get to him…

"Piper…" Alex said then, her voice bringing Piper out of her own head. "I think it's time you tell me what the hell it is we're doing here. I deserve answers."

Piper dropped her eyes and slowly removed her hand from where Alex was still cradling it.

"Why am I here?" Alex pressed on.

She was always going to tell her. At the very last when there was nothing Alex could do about it. When knowing couldn't affect the outcome of the plan. But now the circumstances clearly called for a major adjustment in the original plan. They came so close to losing in that alley. What if they weren't that lucky the next time around? Piper was protected as long as she had what Kubra wanted. Alex was the one who needed the biggest failsafe. And so Piper knew what she had to do.

"I'll tell you," Piper said. "I'll tell you what you want to know. But there's something I have to do first."

"Do it after," Alex said. Not ready to give in just yet. She had to know the truth.

"I can't. I think he might make a move for the… the thing he's after. It's at my place."

"You're kidding, right?"

"I've hidden it," Piper assured her.

"In the first place he'll go looking? I thought you were a genius."

"The best way to hide something is to not hide it. In plain sight," Piper explained off Alex's shocked expression. "I don't think he'll find it but still… I'll feel better knowing I have it. And also…" She looked over her shoulder to make sure they were alone and then lowered her voice. "…there's no fucking wifi out here. I have to see if he's made contact. I have to get to my stuff."

"Speaking of which… where exactly are we?" Alex asked.

Just then a woman walked in as if on cue. Alex had never seen her before. She carried a steaming mug of coffee, floorboards creaking under her every step. Plain but pretty in her own way, she wore a flowing floral dress with leather sandals.

"You're awake." Her voice was as soft and flowy as the dress had on. She was smiling. "You look like shit, but you're not dead so that's a plus."

Alex looked to Piper and back to the woman. Gave her an awkward smile.

"Thanks Neri," Piper said, taking the cup of coffee from her sister-in-law.

A light went on in the back of Alex's foggy mind at the mention of the name. Cal's wife. So they were at her brother's place. Cabin, it seemed. With no wifi. So… out of the city somewhere.

"Where's Cal?" Piper asked and took a much needed sip of her coffee. At that point in her day it was better than any kind of medicine.

Neri shrugged. "Outside. He's still sulking."

Piper looked at her apologetically. "The less he knows the better for all of you," she said, sounding like this wasn't the first time they were going over it.

Neri nodded her understanding. "I know. He's just worried. We both are. Whatever this is… are you going to be okay?"

Piper didn't answer. She and Alex shared a look that said neither of them knew the answer to that question. But Neri didn't push.

"I'm making breakfast," she announced brightly and left them with the implication that they should follow.

Piper gave a heavy sigh once Neri had disappeared. She looked at Alex who was watching her closely. Like she was about to say something… something Piper felt she wasn't going to like the sound of.

"Breakfast actually sounds really good right now," Piper said quickly. Hoping to avoid any more heavy conversation. "I think I'll grab something before heading off."

Alex pushed up to sit. It took more effort than she first expected – her ribs screaming at her in anger. Raging against the unwanted change in position.

"I'm fine," she said, holding up a hand to stop Piper who had instinctively come forward to help.

The blonde sat back down and watched Alex struggle on by herself. Finally she fell back against the pillows in a semi-sitting position, breathing heavily after all that effort.

"I'm coming with you," she said, still trying to catch her breath.

"You're crazy. I brought you here to keep you safe."

"It's not up for debate." Alex waved her fingers in the direction of Piper's cup, motioning for her to hand it over.

"You're in no condition to-"

"I'm coming with you," Alex repeated and reached out to take the coffee from Piper, ignoring the searing stab in her ribs as she did.

She swallowed it all and gave Piper back the empty cup with a satisfied sigh. She was beat up but she wasn't broken. And she wasn't about to let Piper go out there on her own now that she could be part of Kubra's hunt as well. Something that wouldn't have happened if she hadn't insisted on dragging Piper out the night before. Alex felt the weight of her choices press down on her chest. This was her fault and she had to own it.

"I've already spoken to Cal and Neri about you staying here for a couple of days. You won't be in anyone's way and-"

"Do I smell bacon?" Alex asked, deliberately changing the topic to let Piper know she wasn't winning this one.

Piper smiled softly and shook her head, accepting her defeat gracefully. Because apparently even when she was beaten to a pulp, Alex Vause was still a force to be reckoned with. Something which really shouldn't have surprised Piper at all.

* * *

It was just over an hour drive back to the city. A nerve-wracking hour for Piper because she was driving Cal's beater and the thing felt like it was about to die at any given moment. There was ample time to talk on the way. For Alex to talk Piper out of pursuing whatever plans she had against Kubra because she witnessed first-hand what Piper stood to lose if things went wrong. For Piper to talk Alex out of involving herself any further because things were bad enough for her with Kubra as is. None of that happened. Like each of them waving a white flag at the other. They were tired. Sore. The last thing either of them wanted was to get into a conversation that would only make them feel worse. To rehash the events of the previous night and confirm what they already knew – they were fucked. It was a silent contract drawn up by Alex when she remarked about how beautiful the countryside was. Signed by Piper who said she'd love to live out there some day as long as she had a decent internet connection. Then Alex fell asleep. And she stayed that way until they pulled up to Piper's place. Lulled into a deep drug-like slumber by the noisy, stuttering engine, Alex started awake the second it cut out.

"I slept the whole way?" She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Her muscles stiff and aching from being in one position too long.

"It's okay," Piper said. "I had some 90's grunge keeping me company on this tape deck which I think is from the 80's."

It got a chuckle from Alex and soon Piper joined in. It was one of those rare moments that wasn't weighted down by gloom and doom, and they both acknowledged it and savored it.

"Come on," Piper said, opening her door. "I need a hot shower in my life."

"Now you're talking."

Alex followed her out. Her movements a little slower, more stilted than Piper's. She carefully climbed the steps leading up to the front door, actually taking them one at a time. Breathing through the knife that sliced through her ribs each time she pushed her body a little too hard or too far. Who was she kidding? What help would she be to Piper if they were to run into any more of Kubra's thugs? She couldn't defend herself against a light breeze.

"What is it?" Alex asked when she finally reached the top.

Piper pushed the front door and it swung open lazily, creaking on its hinges. They both just stood there and watched it happen. A memory of the day Cal first brought her there flashed into Alex's mind. The way he had just turned the knob and walked in. No knocking necessary, no keys required. She and Piper were out of there in such a hurry the night before. Alex desperate to breathe air outside of the basement, Piper on edge about being outside at all. Both pumped with the thought of taking the game to Kubra instead of waiting for him to bring it to them. Could they have jumped into the cab without locking up? Alex's stomach dropped to her feet.

"Piper?..."

Piper was taking in the parts of the interior that she could see from out there, her feet like lead on the threshold. The place was obviously trashed.

"We're too late," she said with a sinking feeling. "They were already here."


	8. Chapter 8

_Hi everyone! Sorry for the long wait with this chapter but I'm studying for finals so spare time is very limited currently. I finish next week so there's a silver lining:) Thank you for the comments left on the last chapter. Some of them made me laugh so much. I am not a mystery writer haha but do feel very flattered that you think so._

* * *

 **The Equation – Chapter 8**

* * *

 **/**

 **Sunday, May 26** **th** **, 2013**

 **/**

Alex waited for Piper to make the first move, half expecting her to break into a frantic run for the basement to check on her precious tech sanctuary. But when Piper finally took the step over that threshold, she moved straight into the living room instead. To say that whoever was in there ripped the place apart would be an understatement. Paintings torn from the walls littered the floor, light fixtures were smashed, leaving shards of glass glittering all over the carpet and white plumes of stuffing that spilled like some kind of ghostly vomit from the shredded couch cushions strewn all over. The solid oak coffee table where they had eaten pizza pockets just a few hours ago was upended, with one of its legs split off completely. A splintered stake remainder sticking up into the air like an ominous foreshadowing. And in the middle of the chaos stood Piper. Circling slowly on the spot as her eyes raked over the destruction. Her face an unsettling mask of stillness. And then she stopped. Alex, still rooted to her spot at the doorway leading into the living room, watched Piper closely. She was staring at the blank space above the fireplace. She didn't move or speak and all the quiet was starting to set Alex even more on edge. So she went in, painfully shrugging out of the leather jacket Piper borrowed her the night before.

"Well we know that lightning doesn't strike the same place twice, right? I'll help you get this place cleaned up." Alex tossed the jacket over the arm on the naked couch that now stood at a slanted angle in the room and started toward Piper.

"Don't touch anything," Piper said, turning so suddenly it made Alex stop dead. And the look on her face – Alex couldn't read it exactly but it gave her chills. "Don't move… don't… just don't touch anything." Piper dropped to her knees and started rifling through the debris with an urgency that set off all kinds of alarm bells with Alex.

"What are you doing? Piper… stop." Alex started to reach out for Piper's arm but stopped short and grabbed her ribs instead. The pain dug its claws into her side, wrapped around her and spiraled all the way up and into her head, making her sway on the spot as the floor tilted under her feet. She squeezed her eyes shut to avoid looking at the spinning room. "Fuck." She never felt more useless.

Alex took a deep stabilizing breath and let it out slowly, feeling the waves in her head start to even out. When she opened her eyes again it was to see Piper leap up and descend on a pile of ruin on the other side of the room. What was she after?

"Yes!" Piper exclaimed a little out of breath. She stood up, flattening a creased and torn piece of paper on her thigh with trembling hands. She held it up, her eyes running across the page at lightning speed and then quickly folded it, burying it in her back pocket. "Three more," she said.

"If you tell me what you're looking for I can help you find it," Alex offered, but the exhaustion was clear in her voice so the offer wasn't very convincing.

"Don't move," was all Piper said as she continued her frenzied search with Alex standing helplessly by.

A stray cushion whizzed by Alex's face, tufts of stuffing flying up into the air. Piper resembled a dog trying to unearth a bone the way she went digging through the clutter. And then she was up again. This time with a piece of paper the same as the last. Three more, she'd said. Something in Alex's brain clicked. The way Piper was staring at the wall above the fireplace before. The four black frames of sheet music that hung there the day Cal first brought her there. Music? That's what this was about?

With the right information, Alex started scanning the room from her vantage point. It felt like a twisted game of Where's Wally, where Wally was a scrap of paper in a room filled with garbage. She turned and a crunch under her shoe made her look down. She was standing right on one of them – a heavy black frame with its glass smashed and broken under her feet. And a sheet of paper tucked inside it. Around her Piper was still rushing about in a flurry of strewn wreckage and projectile bits and pieces. Alex exhaled slowly – breathing through the pain – and bent at the knees to lower herself onto her haunches. She gingerly lifted the toe of her one shoe, carefully pinched a corner of the page between two fingers so the splinters of glass around it missed her skin, and gave it a little tug.

Up there in such an esteemed position in the room, with heavy, expensive-looking frames, the paper looked like art. But with no frills to distract her, Alex was surprised to see how quickly the blemishes and overly-creased folds on the page jumped out at her. The music was untidily scrawled – almost haphazardly – like it was done by someone in a hurry. The paper looked like it had lived a hundred lifetimes before finally being put to rest in that most regal spot above the mantle. A place often afforded to the most prized possessions in a household. Alex shook her head in puzzlement. She was missing something big. Just one more thing to be added to all the things related to Piper she didn't have a clue about.

"One more," Alex said, turning as she rose slowly and held the piece of paper out.

Piper's eyes locked on it in a second and she lunged forward, nearly losing any balance she could have had in that swift motion as well as knocking Alex off her feet. One hand shot out almost instinctively to steady Alex as the other snatched the page from the brunette's fingers. Piper exhaled shakily as she reviewed the artifact.

"Are you going to tell me what this is about?" Alex asked through gritted teeth as she clutched her ribs. The sudden jerk from Piper having sent a new wave of pain through her middle.

Piper nodded absently, not even looking at her. Then turned and carried on her search for the final piece of her puzzle, folding the page into its old creases and storing it in her pocket with the other two. Her movements were more frantic now that she was so close and watching her, Alex became suddenly concerned. There was a lot of glass in all that mess and the way Piper was going at it-

"Careful!" Alex called out.

It was like slow motion. Things like that usually are. Piper lurching forward, her hand driving between some wayward clouds of cushion stuffing. From where Alex was standing, with the morning sun splitting through the blinds and over her shoulder, the sliver of glass glinted clearly where it lay. But Piper was at a different angle and saw nothing. She sure felt it though. Her hand snapping back as she cried out in pain, slow motion abandoned for real time reaction, a thin trickle of blood cutting a streamlet down the inside of her palm. Piper blinked stupidly at the gash in her hand as if she'd never seen anything like it before. Alex quickly crossed the space between them in two long strides – all injuries forgotten as she inspected the one now gently cradled in both her hands.

"Come here," Alex said and started leading Piper through the mess and toward the kitchen.

Piper tried to hold back. Her good hand reaching for the piece of paper still on the floor. "Wait-"

"It's not going anywhere," Alex said with a tug that she felt all the way across her chest but ignored. "We have to see to this hand."

She led Piper into the kitchen – both of them stepping carefully over broken pieces of crockery that carpeted the sterile white tiles – and made her stand by the sink, her hand slowly dripping blood onto the clean stainless steel. Whatever those guys were looking for, they left no stone unturned. Some of the kitchen cupboards were still gaping wide open, with all sorts of contents spilled over the counter tops and floor.

"Keep it elevated." Alex took Piper's good hand and set it to grip her other wrist, holding the bleeding hand up.

Piper watched as Alex went straight for the cupboard beside the dishwasher. She pulled the door open roughly and grabbed the first aid box Piper kept there. It was already latched open by the time she got back to the sink. Piper swallowed her heart back down with some difficulty and felt it wreak all kinds of havoc in her chest. She started to shake. Their eyes met and she felt Alex's touch creep slowly down her forearm to finally replace the hand on her wrist. The shaking became less evident, a small smile threatening on Piper's lips. Alex used her free hand to dig out some gauze, ripping the packaging open with her teeth to get it out. All of it happened in complete silence. Piper watched the purposeful movements of Alex's fingers as she removed the gauze from its plastic wrap, the crease of concentration that furrowed her brow as she pressed it firmly to her palm. Then her hand went back into the first aid box and after a few seconds pulled out a roll of bandage.

"So you're cutting yourself into pieces over some music now?" Alex asked. It was more thoughtful than admonishing, as she slowly started to unfurl the bandage around Piper's hand.

"I didn't see the glass," Piper said, not taking her eyes off Alex's face, a hint of wonder in her voice.

"You going to tell me why?"

"Why I didn't see it?"

Alex stopped her movements to look at Piper, holding her gaze. "Why you lost your shit in there. I mean, I thought we'd be down in the basement checking on your precious bat cave. But no..." She took a breath and wound the last bit of bandage, securing it gently with a tiny snap grip fished out of the bottom of the first aid box.

Alex stroked her thumb over her handiwork, almost regretting having to let go of the hand it was holding. But she did. Piper took her hand back and inspected it.

"Thanks," she murmured, and where it was so easy to be riveted by Alex when she wasn't looking, Piper now found it hard to look at her. "Why don't you go get that shower we talked about and-"

"Piper…"

Piper looked up at her. "I promise," she said. "I'll make us some tea and I'll tell you everything."

"Including what that whole deal was about?" Alex motioned in the direction of the living room.

"That deal is the most important part," Piper replied cryptically. "So yes, I'll explain it all."

Now Alex really didn't want to shower. She'd been after answers since the day Piper showed up at Litchfield. She wasn't sure she would survive another second of this game. But that was all in her head. Her body on the other hand was begging for the relief the hot water would surely bring to her aching muscles. For the refreshment that always comes with a bit of shampoo and clean clothes. She couldn't remember the last time she had the luxury of a private shower. As hot as she wanted for as long as she wanted. It was too tempting to refuse.

"Fine," Alex gave in finally. Piper smiled. "But as soon as I'm finished you're spilling the beans on this thing."

"Yes," Piper said.

"And no stabbing yourself while I'm up there," Alex said as she started out of the kitchen.

"I'll try," Piper chuckled and watched her leave. Her heart starting to hammer away all over again.

"And lock the front door for god's sake," she heard Alex call from the hallway.

Piper nodded stiffly even though she knew Alex couldn't see it. But her voice was trapped. Her mouth dry. The time to come clean was only a few minutes away. All this planning. This waiting. The fingers on her good hand started up a symphony on the kitchen counter. She knew she had to tell Alex. She was always going to tell her everything anyway. Whether Alex would believe any of it though… that bit couldn't be predicted.

* * *

Heaven was all hot showers that never ran cold. Alex was convinced of it. Time stopped dead while she indulged in it. No guilt. It was as good as she thought it would be. The steaming water pelting down on her, making her skin sing and glow red almost instantly. And after a few minutes the heat penetrated her muscles, flaying them open so the aches just poured out. When she finally stepped out of the shower she felt a marked change. It could've all just been in her head or maybe the scalding water really did assuage some of the pain. Either way she felt a little more freedom in her motion as she lifted her arm to wipe away the steam from the mirror in the bathroom. She swallowed hard. The image of someone else's face staring back at her made her stomach flip over. It couldn't be hers. The blackened eye, broken lips, bruised cheek… She'd walked straight into it. She should've known better. And what's worse, she led Piper in there right with her. Thank god she wasn't seriously hurt. She gripped the sink in front of her until her knuckles turned white. They were so deep in it now Alex was starting to fear the worst. She was ready to go out fighting but the idea that Piper might go down with her never occurred to her before. And the idea that she'd care… Alex shook her head. How a stranger she only just met could be having this effect on her was as big a mystery as the stranger herself. But there was no fighting it. Alex knew there was something happening with her feelings for Piper. She couldn't make any sense of it but clearly it didn't have to make sense to be true.

A low thunk filtered through the closed bathroom door and Alex straightened, training her ears to pick out the activity in the room behind it. It was all quiet again. Suddenly her insides twisted at the thought that she might have been wrong before about lightning never striking the same place twice. Suddenly it seemed totally plausible that at that second Kubra's thugs were in her room – having already gotten to Piper – and were now waiting to jump her the second she emerged from the bathroom. Hands trembling slightly, she wrapped a towel around her and slowly pulled the door. It swung silently on its hinges and Alex let out a sigh of relief when she found the room void of beefy men with death in their eyes. She wasn't wrong about someone being in there though. It was Piper. Rifling through the chest of drawers across the room. Her wet hair hung loose, clinging to her neck and shoulders. Bare neck and shoulders. Alex slowly turned back into the bathroom, swiped for her glasses on the shelf above the sink and shoved them onto her face before turning back. Like a reflex her teeth bit down on her lower lip as her eyes grazed over the bare flesh of Piper's back. The way her muscles rippled with her movements, the constellation of beauty marks beneath her right shoulder blade, the inward curve that gave way to the delicious slant of her hips… She didn't linger on the large purpling bruise that formed a band across Piper's left side but even that couldn't ruin the effect the woman was having on her. The guilt feelings had no place now that these… other… feelings had come out to play. Alex's tongue came out to wet her lips. She cursed the denim cut-offs that hung loosely on those hips, messing with her view but at the same time making the mound of Piper's ass more alluring the way it hugged her so perfectly just there. Piper pushed the drawer closed with a grunt that broke the spell she unwittingly had cast over Alex.

"Don't," Alex said quickly, her voice a throaty husk and nothing more.

Piper, having found what she was looking for, was about to turn around and froze at the sound of Alex's voice. At what Alex's voice sounded like. Her bare skin woke with goosebumps all over.

And Alex, despite the warmth rising in hidden places, chose to preserve the woman's dignity. "I mean… I just thought that…" Alex didn't bother finishing her sentence. It would've given too much away.

Piper got the message though and hurriedly pulled on the t-shirt she was digging for, turning around with a definite flush in her cheeks.

"Sorry, I needed a shower too and I figured while you were in here I'd take the main, and I thought my shirt was in there with my other stuff but…" her voice trailed off. Alex's semi-naked form made it really hard to concentrate. The effort it was taking to actively not stare at her even more so. "…it's my favorite," Piper mumbled hopelessly, tugging at a worn out corner of the MIT t-shirt.

"I noticed," Alex said, remembering the shirt as the one Piper had on when she first appeared in the living room on day 1 of Alex's freedom.

She walked over to the bed where it looked like a fresh set of clothes had been laid out. They weren't there when she'd gone to shower. A faded green shirt with long ass number spiraling out over the entire front, and a different pair of jeans. The clothes it had taken her an eternity to wrestle out of were gone. Alex frowned.

"I hope you don't mind," Piper said then. "I threw everything in the machine. They were gross. I thought you'd feel better after your shower if you-"

"The machine?" Alex asked alarmed.

"It's okay," Piper said quickly, digging in the pocket of her shorts. She pulled out the tattered, flimsy thing she knew was behind Alex's panic and held it out to her.

Alex grabbed for it, laying it flat in her palm and using her fingertips to smooth it out, careful to not press or pull too hard. It was old and falling apart. The photograph of her mother. With veiny creases slowly swallowing up the image and the color very near becoming as distant a memory as the day it was taken. It was the only thing in this world she still owned. It was the only thing she turned back for before they escorted her out of Litchfield. Buried in the pocket of her jeans and again in the jeans Piper gave her the night before. She could feel Piper's eyes burning into her but Alex couldn't look up. She couldn't trust what her face would look like if she met Piper's gaze. So she just stared at her mother's serene face, head resting on the head of a 9-year-old girl wearing big glasses and a bigger grin. A pang shot across her chest, squeezing her heart a little too tightly. Having that photo made her feel better. But she was always sad for the people in it who didn't exist anymore. Would never exist again. Her mother dead from brain trauma at an age when that shit shouldn't happen, and an innocent little girl with hope in her eyes and dreams in her head… well that girl didn't survive her teens. She was 19 when she first stepped into Kubra's circle. The beginning of the end. And now? Was this the end of the end?

"And I brought this," Piper's voice came to get Alex in the recess of her mind where she knew it wasn't good to dwell so she was kind of thankful for it and looked up, blinking fast so any trace of what she was thinking could disappear. Piper was holding what looked like a wide band, cream in color and stretchy.

"What's that?" Alex's voice croaked a little and she cleared her throat. Hating herself for allowing that kind of vulnerability.

Piper had immediately sensed the turmoil writhing inside Alex but knew it was better to pretend she didn't. As much as she wanted to… there were certain places she was banned from going. At least until Alex knew the truth. Until she understood.

"It'll be a lot easier to move around if you're strapped up real tight." Piper pointed in the general area of Alex's ribs. "Do you need help getting dressed?"

Alex chuckled softly, feeling a slight warmth creep onto her face. "I think I can manage."

Piper nodded and turned around, facing the chest of drawers again, her back to Alex.

"Uh what are you doing?"

"Waiting," Piper replied simply.

"Leave the band. I can do it myself." Alex was shocked. Was she going to stand there in her underwear and let Piper strap her up? Could she?

"I know you can," Piper said. "But I'll do a better job of it."

Alex stood there looking at Piper's back, her mouth open, wanting to argue but not finding any argument to make. Piper wasn't moving. She had no intention of leaving. Great. Alex shook her head slowly in disbelief and picked up the white bra first. It was a Litchfield special. Not exactly made for moments of seduction but it was the only one she had. And now Piper was going to get up close and personal with it. The strain of tying the bra behind her back smarted a little, but Alex still felt better than she did before her heat therapy in the shower. She gritted her teeth through it. And through stepping into the clean panties Piper had brought. These were white too. Cotton. And then the jeans.

"You decent?" Piper asked, her voice light and Alex was sure it carried a hint of amusement. At her expense.

"You can turn around now," she responded in a flat tone. And found that she was right – Piper tried to hide her smile but Alex saw right through her.

Piper walked over to her. "Arms out."

Alex shook her head but did as she was told and lifted her arms out to the side. Piper stepped in closer, smelling of soap and shampoo – jojoba. Alex turned her head to look at the super interesting handles on the closet doors. Piper's breath played on the bare skin of her neck causing instant bumps to break out on her arms. Closet. Door handles. And then Piper's arms were around her middle, their bodies touching so the blonde could meet her hands in back to grip the band. Alex tried to focus all her energy on slowing down her heart. Sure that if Piper looked down she would see the thing fighting to pound its way straight out of her chest. Closet. Door handles. Soft hands feathered over her skin as Piper pulled the band around her. The way Piper brushed against her chest with the movement teased her nipples through the washed out fabric of the Litchfield bra. Alex closed her eyes and slowed her breathing.

Piper didn't look up. Her eyes fixed on the black beauty spot in Alex's neck, the way it thudded under her pulse. The pulse that was clearly racing. So it's not just me, Piper thought. The air around them was electric. Charged with lightning that was coursing through her. Through them both. The lightest touch caused the deepest shock. A jolt that trailed all the way through her veins, swimming the length of her body, until finally igniting between her legs. Piper swallowed. Ducks on a pond. She flattened her palm over the one end of the band on Alex's torso to hold it in place and brought the other end over it. Switching hands, she gave a slight tug to tighten the wrap. Alex sucked in her breath through clamped teeth.

"Too tight?" Piper asked, looking up. Her voice soft and full of concern but also so low… and full of something else.

Alex still had her head turned and was biting down on her lips. She shook her head quickly. "Just do it."

Piper continued. She took the band all the way around Alex again, careful to keep it taut, careful not to hurt her. Or enjoy the closeness too much. Even after the shower, Alex still carried her distinct scent. Like it was in her skin. Piper breathed through her nose. Ducked her head just a little. Close but not touching the spot just under Alex's ear. With the woman between her arms like this, it was hard to not just hold her there. Do things… Nimble fingers worked behind Alex's back to switch the band into Piper's other hand and bring it around to the front again for the final wrap. She worked slowly. Because she didn't want to hurt Alex. Because it would be over too soon.

/

Alex felt the pressure of Piper's open palm pressed against her middle and her eyes shot open. Even with the barrier of the band between them, Piper's warmth ushered through it like it was nothing. Spreading over Alex's skin like ripples on a pond. Until slowly but surely every part of her was burning with that same warmth. A slight tug from Piper rocked her on her feet a little, unsettling the pooled heat between her legs that she was fighting so hard to ignore. The light touches, the soft breathing. Alex sucked in her breath.

"Too tight?" Piper's low voice reverberated through Alex, teasing at her core like a strum on a double bass.

She bit down on her lips and shook her head. Closets. Door handles. "Just do it," she said.

/

Piper finished her work without another word and Alex played the perfect patient for her. The space between them was nothing. Their hammering hearts fighting to lead the beating chorus that had struck up. Alex felt Piper's breath on the spot just beneath her ear and felt the last of her resolve flutter out of her and into the charged particles of the air around them. She couldn't look away any longer. Fuck the door handles.

Piper snapped the last of the three grips that secured the band into place and ran a finger ever so softly down the center line of Alex's abdomen. It was an unwarranted touch, she knew. One that couldn't be explained away by medical necessity. But she couldn't help herself. All this time. All this waiting…

"Is that it?" Alex asked softly.

Piper looked up and into green eyes that had grown so dark the sight of it stole her breath away. She swallowed.

"How does it feel?" They were speaking in whispers now.

A corner of Alex's mouth tilted up slightly. "Feels good."

Her face was so close to Piper's… She dipped her head and brushed a cheek against hers. Feeling like she was about to be crushed by the overwhelming desire to just kiss her already. She felt Piper lean into it. The two of them in this dance of touching and then not touching, feathery breaths floating over hungry lips. Not touching. Free to move her arms now, Alex dug her fingers into the soft flesh above Piper's hips.

Piper smiled, aware that her hand was still flat on Alex's belly, the finger of the other hanging in the loop of her jeans. When did that happen? She felt the strongest urge to run her finger along Alex's jaw. Her neck. Collar bones. The moment of closeness and softness was so rare it was dizzying. It would be such a waste to let the moment fade. The mottled bruising on the brunette's cheek caught her eye and without thinking, Piper lifted her fingers to ghost over the delicate skin. She noticed how Alex dropped her eyes and instantly sensed the guilt Alex felt over what had happened in that alley. But Piper didn't blame her for it. She couldn't have known. The moment started to slip. A deep feeling of regret filled Piper then. If anyone was to blame for this it was her. She was the one who started it after all. Who kept starting it. And that was enough to break the spell that had been so intricately woven over them. Piper dropped her hands and took a step back. Out of Alex's arms. The air that rushed into the new space between them felt cold and dead.

"Tea," she said with a forced smile and watched as Alex's face tried to do the same. "I'll let you finish here…"

"Sure," Alex said, running a hand through her wet hair, forcing her body to succumb to her control once again. "And Pipes…" she called after Piper, who turned at the bedroom door to look at her. "Thanks," she said simply.

Piper smiled in acknowledgement and disappeared into the hall. Alex waited to hear her footsteps on the stairs before letting out a drawn out groan. She wasn't crazy. There was something going on here. And whatever it was, she was reaching a point where her ability to do nothing about it was becoming extinct. And what would that mean? If Piper was into it, would they forget about the fiancé she was specifically brought here to save? Would they up and run away together? With Kubra and his men following close behind? No. There was an end to this that needed to happen before anything else could even be considered. An end that could very well be _her_ end. And then it wouldn't even matter because she'd be dead and Piper and her beloved would get to live their long happy lives together. Alex pulled on the nerdy t-shirt, realizing that the stabbing pain in her ribs was definitely reduced, slipped the photo of her mother into her jeans pocket, and started out of the bedroom. For the first time since the judge brought down his gavel on her sentence three years before, she felt like _she_ wanted to be the one with a long happy life for a change. That out of all those happy endings being dealt out to everyone, surely there could be one in there for her? It was this that weighed her down as she took to the stairs to find Piper in the kitchen.


	9. Chapter 9

_Hi everyone! Apologies for missing the update last week. I finished my finals and needed sleep. A lot of it! Thank you for the well wishes, I am feeling positive :)_

 _This chapter – even though I've been looking forward to it – was very hard to write and took so long to finish. I'm still not happy with it. But I don't see myself dwelling on it for another week, so thought I would get it up before it kills me. I hope you enjoy it! As ever, thank you all for your kind comments and for sharing your enthusiasm about this story. I really didn't expect so much interest when I started – the idea is so out there – but I appreciate every one of you reading this. Some of you have been piecing things together and it has been very interesting to read. Now you finally get some answers… :)_

* * *

 **The Equation – Chapter 9**

* * *

 **/**

 **Sunday, May 26** **th** **, 2013**

 **/**

Piper needed a minute. Several, in fact. Her white-knuckled grip on the counter island in the middle of the kitchen was doing most of the work keeping her standing – with knees of jelly and her whole body trembling, there wasn't much she could do herself. She took a deep, shaky breath and swallowed back the tears that threatened. The immense lump in her throat hurt as it struggled back down. It was like her body was punishing her for what she had done – for walking away from Alex in that bedroom. Every molecule inside her was protesting it. But there could have been no other ending to that moment. Not with the way things now stood. She was a fool to entertain the notion for that long in the first place. She knew going up there what she was going to have to do and yet… Alex just had that effect on her.

The static noise in her head began to quiet down and Piper looked again to her panicked scrawl taking up most of the counter where she was standing. A chaotic tangle of working out that she had set to as soon as Alex disappeared upstairs to shower. With everything she needed to do, she couldn't take another step without first consulting her tried and tested oracle. The one that never failed. There were too many new developments to account for. In a few short hours Kubra not only found out that Alex was out of prison, but also that she was with Piper. And with Piper's 48-hour window closing right when that information leaked…

He said there would be instructions. Instead, he sent his guys to try and take what he wanted. That was a sign that the old deal was off. But the fact that they didn't get what they had come for was the only reason she was sure Larry was still alive. That there was still a chance for her to do what she initially intended – lose no-one. But that same fact – that they didn't find what they were looking for – was also the reason for the rising terror snaking its way through her. It was why she forced herself to walk out of that room just now. Because it could only mean one thing. And if she was going to be the protection for Alex she promised she would be, there could be no indulging in whims and fancies at this point in time. There was a plan. Sure, it had been knocked around a bit but it wasn't derailed. A few alterations and they could still come out of this exactly like she first predicted. The only challenge, the only thing that could cause things to sway off kilter, was if Alex didn't go along with it. Of course, there was a simple way to eradicate that challenge. Make sure Alex had no choice in the matter.

Piper went to fill the kettle and set it on the stove, turning up the gas. That feeling of coming unraveled was fading fast and by the time she had prepared their cups for the tea, her razor sharp focus was back on the matter at hand. She willed it to hold out just a little longer. All she needed was to get through the next hour or so. At least, that was what she hoped for. But Piper knew it was closer to only thirty minutes.

"If I don't die today, I demand you take me shopping first thing tomorrow."

Piper turned around to find Alex leaning against the door frame to the kitchen, arms folded across her chest, an amused expression on her face. Piper had been so lost in thought she hadn't heard Alex make her way down the stairs. She wanted to say something reproving about Alex making jokes about dying but at the same time felt that there was probably very little joke in that statement, so said nothing.

"I don't like wearing clothes that are smarter than I am," Alex continued, trying to stick to the plan she decided on before coming down. The one where she would try and focus on their current situation and not the developments that were quickly growing between her and Piper.

Her eye caught the kitchen counter covered in black scribbles and suddenly everything else went out of her head.

"Jesus," Alex said walking over to it, no longer smiling. "What the hell is this?"

"The tea's almost ready," Piper announced lightly. Alex looked up at her like she was a crazy person. Talking about tea when there was clearly more pressing matters on the table, so to speak. "Are you hungry? I can make you a sandwich."

"Are you okay?" Alex asked, her thoughts going back to Red's office and the mental state that pushed Piper to go over to that window. The scribbled math on the counter reminded her too much of that. She didn't like the feeling it gave it her. Something felt wrong.

"I'm fine," Piper said, and the kettle started to sing just as she said it. She welcomed the interruption and turned to lift the kettle off the stove.

"Are you going to tell me what this is about?" Alex asked tentatively to Piper's back as she watched the blonde go about making their tea.

Piper made her way over with two steaming cups. "Chamomile," she said, sliding Alex's tea over to her. "Make sure you finish it. It'll make you feel better."

"I don't want to feel better. I want to know what this is," Alex replied stubbornly, waving her hand at the jumbled mess of black between them. "Did something happen?"

"Everything's fine," Piper reassured her, and after a second added a stiff smile. She took her sip of her tea.

"I don't believe you," Alex muttered, but picked up her cup as well. The smell of it wafting up to her was too good to ignore. She couldn't help the pleasant moan that first sip brought on. "Okay fine, it's good," she said in defense of her reaction when she saw the hint of smile on Piper's face.

"Drink up."

Alex didn't need the encouragement. She drank in silence while pondering over the writing again, even though she knew there was no way she'd ever make sense of it. The whole time though, she was sure Piper was studying her closely. Obviously thinking about what Alex was trying so hard not to think about. Maybe it wasn't going to be that easy to leave what happened behind them.

"Listen, Piper," Alex turned to her, ready to get into it, but was surprised to find Piper laying out the four sheets of music and promptly changed her mind. Apparently they weren't thinking about the same thing.

"I'm listening," Piper murmured absently as she fiddled with the pages in front of her.

But Alex shook her head quickly and drank some more, feeling guilty that she was still obsessing about their almost kiss when there was a life-or-death situation to deal with.

"I was just going to say… what Sylvie told me at the club," Alex said, grateful to her mind for latching onto something relevant just in time. It got Piper's attention and the music was forgotten. "One of the locations from your software simulation thing-" and then her train of thought got snagged on something else. "Have you been down there yet?" Alex asked, remembering Piper's basement tech sanctuary.

She wasn't sure how long she was in that shower, but if it was long enough for Piper to complete her music collection, do some complicated math on a random surface like she was apparently inclined to do at weird times… it made sense to think she would've gone to check on her most valuable possessions.

Piper watched Alex set her empty teacup down. She had a sense of what Alex was about to talk about – it was a little obvious, considering. Any other day and time and she would've been all for it. Piper glanced up at the round wall clock hanging beside the cupboard where she kept the cereal and was overcome with a maniacal urge to go over there, tear it down, and smash it into pieces.

Piper shook her head and dismissed Alex's question with a wave of her hand. "It doesn't matter. What did she say? What location?"

Alex shrugged. As odd as Piper's behavior seemed sometimes, she always had the air of someone who knew exactly what she was doing. Alex trusted it. Trusted her. For reasons she wasn't too bothered to find out just yet.

"It's the warehouse," she said. "Home to his forty-two strong car collection. Nothing out of the ordinary, right? A man with his resources needs something to spend his money on and a place to keep it all. But get this," Alex put her flat palms on the counter and leaned in. Piper found herself doing the same. "A week ago the club lost about half its security. Guys on Kubra's payroll. Part of the deal with Mendez. Beef to protect the girls or whatever. But they just stopped showing up for work and so Mendez made a few calls, and it turned out they were all reassigned."

"Reassigned? To the warehouse…" Piper added it up instantly.

Alex nodded. "I've been in there a couple of times. A 24-hour guard out front, CCTV, alarm… Why would he suddenly need four extra men?"

"Because that's where he's keeping the man he kidnapped." Piper knew it was true the second she said it.

Alex nodded and then added "Your fiancé" feeling how the words twisted the knot in her stomach.

Piper didn't acknowledge what she said in any way. She didn't even look at her, choosing rather to study the sheet music.

"It's an equation," Piper said quickly, like someone wanting to have it over and done with. She breathed out slowly, her shoulders falling with it as she looked back up to Alex. " _My_ equation." There was no turning back now. "I didn't check the basement because there's nothing there for them to find," Piper said. "This is what they're after."

"Music…" Alex said, a little dubiously.

"An equation."

"That he's willing to kill for and yet you had hanging in the middle of- …right… the best way to hide something is to not hide it," Alex repeated Piper's words with new understanding.

Piper nodded. "They had it in their hands and didn't know."

"Unbelievable," Alex said, sounding a little in awe of Piper.

"Not really, if you consider the most basic constructs for-" Piper stopped short at the look Alex was giving her. The one that said she was about to go off on an explanation that wasn't asked for. She smiled and soon Alex returned it with a soft laugh.

"Sorry," Piper offered feebly, dropping her eyes to study the counter top again.

"Don't. You're wired differently, I get it," Alex said. "I like it." And then quickly looked away too so that she didn't have to see Piper's reaction, if there was one.

Alex had come across all types of people in her life. Reading them was one of her strengths. That left very little room to be blindsided or surprised. It also left very little room for excitement and enchantment. And then there was Piper. Every time Alex thought she had her pegged, the woman would do something or say something that would send her spinning. There was no pegging her. She was surprise and mystery at any time. Alex couldn't make sense of her or the visceral way in which her body reacted to her. She didn't care to. It felt good just to be there with her. Where time was both forever and never long enough.

"An equation hidden in a piece of music?" Alex asked as a way to distract herself from her current train of thought but also really to know what the hell was going on. She was still having trouble grasping the concept.

"Not hidden, no," Piper replied. "The music _is_ the equation." Alex's face changed and she started to look like someone in a great deal of pain as she struggled to understand. Piper found it endearing, and had to try very hard to not dwell on that. "Look," she said and, picking up the discarded marker from before, started writing out parts of the equation on a small open space on the counter, as she pointed with her other hand to corresponding sections on the page, "music and math are the same thing. Rhythm, breaks, a series of notes… all numbers really. My physics professor at MIT played the Fibonacci sequence in a class once. That's what gave me the idea when it came to keeping my discovery out of the wrong hands. I burned the notebook with the working, I don't have it saved anywhere else… this is it. The only version." She snapped the cap back onto the marker.

"What's this?" Alex asked, tapping the bottom corner of the last page. She hadn't noticed it until now but the final bar was empty. "You didn't finish?"

"It's finished. Just saved somewhere else. I didn't include it here in case-"

"In case it ended up in the wrong hands, then at least they wouldn't have the whole thing."

"Honestly if they knew what they were dealing with, they'd probably be able to figure it out on their own. But it would take time. Hopefully enough time for me to find them, and stop them."

Alex looked at Piper in awe. All that talk in Red's office about planning for every eventuality…

"Is this what your fingers are always doing when you're nervous?" Alex asked.

Piper nodded sheepishly.

"You're something else, you know that?" Alex said in all sincerity, feeling her affections for the woman deepen.

Piper smiled slightly, maybe even a little sadly, and shook her head. "Numbers and science. It's all I am. Not exactly the same as being Something Else."

"I don't think that's all you are," Alex countered gently. And when Piper's surprised eyes snapped up to hers, offered her a reassuring smile.

Piper accepted her words with as much grace as she could manage, feeling suddenly vulnerable. Feeling like, with everything about to hurtle out of her grip maybe she should have stayed in that bedroom with Alex just a few minutes more. She should have done that. She should have taken the time.

"So what is it… some high tech weapon that will end the world or something?" Alex asked, that familiar hint of amusement in her voice. It was enough to break the spell Piper's fantasies were weaving in her head. "Or maybe a recipe for a new drug that'll make him even richer?"

But she knew it wasn't either of those. Piper didn't strike her as the kind of person who would be messing with things like that. Which gave Alex pause. What would someone like Piper be working on that would be of interest to someone like Kubra? It was a question that had plagued her since this whole thing started and she couldn't help the little twitch of excitement that was building up at the thought of finally getting the answer.

"Let's go sit down," Piper offered, and started in the direction of the dining room.

"I'm fine right here," Alex said and Piper stopped. "Just tell me already."

Piper's feet moved slowly as she made her way back, this time going to stand beside Alex, where she picked up the marker as she considered the working on the counter once more. Snapping and unsnapping the cap.

"Why don't we get some paper this time?" Alex asked with a smile in her tone.

Piper shook her head slowly and looked up at her. "That won't be necessary. Just talking."

"Great. So you're saying I'll be able to keep up?"

Piper tried to return Alex's easy smile, thinking it was probably best to try and keep this level of levity going. But she just couldn't. Because she knew that of all the ways this conversation could play out – light and breezy wasn't one of them.

"The equation makes it possible for a person to change the frequency at which they vibrate, enabling them to cross over into an alternate universe. Or timeline. I like timeline better." Just like that.

If she were presenting this at a conference, her opening would have been about fifteen minutes longer and with loads more science, but for now this would do. Piper watched Alex, a slew of unreadable emotions playing across her face in an instant, and waited.

"Oh, neat," Alex said after a few seconds of consideration. "And when do the little green men show up to carry us off on their spaceship?"

"Alex…"

"No, forget it. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to." Alex was suddenly touchy.

"But-"

"No, it's fine. I mean, all you did was pull me out of prison so I could do you a favor that ended up sticking me in the crosshairs of a man who wants me dead. But yeah, maybe it's too much for me to ask what the hell I'm even doing this for." She wasn't sure what made her so mad, so quickly, but Alex was standing there feeling the heat rising along the back of her neck.

It was a hard pill to swallow – the reminder that the woman beside her was a stranger. A stranger who apparently had a mental problem and pulled her into a situation that put an army of hitmen on her back. Someone not to be trusted, despite anything to the contrary she might feel. And feelings? Alex's heart dropped. She should've known better. Did prison really fuck her up so badly that she could no longer trust her own instincts?

"I'm telling you the truth. Please, just take a breath and listen to me."

"Don't need to," Alex said with a shrug. "I'm calm." She totally wasn't calm. "I just need some air." She gave Piper a fake, tightlipped smile and turned to leave.

"You can't go out there." Piper moved quickly to block Alex's path, standing between her and the hallway. She had expected a bit of push from Alex, but this? "It's not safe. Please."

Alex felt the anger building up, settling warm and heavy in her chest. Anger at Piper for finding her in the first place, for making her part of whatever sick game this was. But mostly anger at herself for getting so involved. For allowing Piper to reel her in and make her care… And did she really just hear her say 'alternate universe'? The woman was clearly certifiable.

"Get out of my way."

"No," Piper said refusing to budge. "You said it yourself – there's a target on your back. You walk out of here and I can't protect you."

"Protect me?" Alex asked with an incredulous laugh. It was taut and bitter and Piper winced at the sound of it. "Like you protected your fiancé?" Piper pursed her lips tightly and took the blow in silence. "You know, it's starting to look like I'm a whole lot safer away from you." Alex was on a roll fueled by frustration, humiliation and maybe even a little hurt. "It's like you're a magnet for chaos and death, only it's never you – just the people around you. At first I thought you were some kind of freakishly smart mad scientist, but you're not." She laughed that hostile laugh again. "You're more like a black widow. At least I caught on soon enough before it was too late for me. But poor Larry. If the guy only kne-" But the end of her sentence got slapped right out of her mouth.

Alex straightened, her cheek on fire. It was like she could still feel the ghost of each of Piper's fingers where they landed on her already bruised skin. The tip of her tongue came out to the corner of her split lip where the sting was worst and she looked at Piper, a half smile on her face.

"Was that good for you?" She was seething but her voice was cold and flat.

"Yes," Piper said, a little out of breath and obstinately holding Alex's gaze.

Alex nodded and without a word moved around Piper, shouldering her out of the way so she could pass. Piper watched her make a steady pace down the hall, sparing a glance into the living room as she passed it, and then tugging on the handle of the front door. And then tugging it again. Piper folded her arms over her chest and waited.

"Where are the keys?" Alex demanded. Piper shrugged in all innocence, like she had no idea what Alex was talking about. "Piper…" Alex said in a warning tone.

"I know it's hard but I need you to trust me."

"I don't even know you!"

Piper looked like now she was the one who had been slapped and took a second to regain her composure before she spoke again, her voice even and calm.

"All matter is made up of atoms that vibrate at very specific frequencies…"

"Goddammit Piper I swear I'll climb through the window if you don't unlock this door."

"Then go," Piper said, approaching her. "But I found a way to manipulate the frequency at which a human being-"

Alex gave an exasperated groan and, throwing her arms up, made her way into the living room. Piper followed quickly behind.

"By placing a receiver inside the body, you can then transmit an encoded signal…" Her words came out in a streaming rush as she watched Alex stomp over to the window, crushing bits of glass and junk beneath her shoes all the way. "…which changes the body's vibrations on an atomic level." Alex forcefully jerked the string on the side of the blinds to raise them. "That's what makes it possible for someone to interact with dimensions other than the ones that limit us to this plane." Alex pushed with a grunt as her middle took some strain but eventually the window she was fighting with slid open. "It's how we can pass through all the layers and get to-"

"An alternate universe?" Alex blustered, turning around. Out of breath, face red. "Can you not hear how crazy you sound?" But all of that anger and hurtfulness from before was toned down. Like she had tired herself out in the struggle to get that window open. Or maybe she just didn't like the way it felt to direct that kind of anger at Piper.

Piper was so relieved for Alex's pause in her escape attempt she jumped at the opening as if it were her only shot.

"Alternate timelines parallel to our own where there are versions of everything and everyone." She was going to get through to her. She had to.

Alex took a breath. What she knew about science – quantum or other – wasn't much. She could never know if Piper was lying or not unless she placed her trust on those same instincts she questioned a few seconds ago.

"So this universe… timeline… has a whole bunch of copies?" Alex found herself asking despite herself.

Piper shook her head. "Sometimes there are slight variations. Sometimes big ones," she ended softly.

Alex gently massaged her ribs as she considered Piper's words. She cut an austere figure in front of the window, with the breeze from outside playing in the curtains at her back. She wasn't sure why she was entertaining this. It sounded insane. Like something out of Star Trek. But Piper didn't sound like she was lying. And she didn't feel like she was being lied to. That was the most important part. As farfetched as this all sounded, she didn't sense any alarm bells. In fact, she'd heard about these theories some scientists had – that there were all these other universes besides the one everyone knew. She never gave it much thought except that it was a nice idea. And now this… This woman – a stranger – who in a space of about two days she has wanted to con, kiss, help, kiss, protect, kiss, strangle…

"So what's his deal?" Alex asked, finally giving in and walking over to sit on the couch with no pillows. Accepting her fate as being so undoubtedly screwed. Because she knew it wasn't the locked door keeping her there.

Piper joined her, sinking onto the fabric base of the naked couch in relief. "The last bit that I left out of the music, it's an if-then condition that makes it impossible for you to cross over to a timeline in which you already exist."

"But you just said every universe is like this one, so-"

"His parents could never have met and he could never have been born. Or he could have died. I said sometimes there are variations." Alex nodded her understanding. "Can you imagine what something like this could mean in the hands of someone like him?"

There was a moment where they just looked at each other. Piper trying to figure out what Alex was thinking, Alex trying to decide if she was asleep and dreaming in her prison bunk or not.

"Al if he gets this… it means a world without Kubra would suddenly have him in it. There'd be no end to the infection he'll spread. The harm he'd cause."

"You really believe this stuff?" Alex asked, her voice softer. "That there are hundreds of universes out there… with hundreds of Alex Vauses rotting away in a prison cell?"

"Actually the number is closer to infinity," Piper corrected her simply. "And you're not in prison in all of them. Well, you're not you exactly. All those others… they're not you." Her voice trailed away.

"I'd like to be a free version of me for a day or fifty," Alex said, sounding nostalgic for something she never experienced.

What would a life untouched by Kubra look like for her? She struggled to picture anything of worth. The idea was entirely foreign because the man had taken so much of her life. And then another question occurred to her.

"How did he even find out you had this?"

"I messed up," Piper said. "While I was developing the equation I hit a roadblock and called my old professor to ask him about it. Next think I know, he's bringing it up at the Future Tech conference – announcing my discovery on a global platform. There were over two thousand delegates and a live stream on Facebook."

"Yeah, that'll do it."

"I should've known not to trust anyone. He didn't mention my name, but I imagine it wouldn't have taken much for Kubra to get it out of him."

"Still… it seems like a lot of trouble to go through for speculation," Alex said. "He doesn't even know if it works. I mean, even your professor – at the time it was just something you were working on, right?"

"I'm not the smartest person alive," Piper said. "All Kubra needed was someone to do the work and walk him through it."

"So it does work?" Alex pressed, noticing Piper's avoidance of her statement before.

Piper looked at her but didn't say anything.

"Wait… where are you from?" Alex asked cautiously, the thought suddenly dawning on her that the woman in front of her might be from a whole other universe.

She shifted over a smidge, subconsciously increasing the space between them. Was this the part where Piper grew another head and took Alex to her leader? Alex shook her head, admonishing her own stupid spiral into thinking stupid things. She needed a drink that wasn't tea and wondered if Piper kept anything stronger hidden in those kitchen cabinets.

"I've crossed over a few times," Piper replied. She had noticed Alex's subtle backing up, but didn't take it personally. This was a lot for her to take in. She was just happy that Alex was here and listening at all, and not out that window on her way to disappearing again. "I've been to other timelines, but this is where I belong." She stated the fact earnestly, fixing her eyes on Alex.

Alex was dumbfounded. She didn't know what to think. "What's it like?" The questions were forming themselves in her mind with no help whatsoever from her.

Piper shrugged. "Feels a little like you're getting seasick but it passes quickly. The time jumps are different though-"

"Whoa whoa wait… time travel?"

"The first time was an accident. I needed a device to negotiate the _space_ between our worlds, and that's what I set out to do, so-"

"Why?"

"Why, what?" Piper asked, looking a little alarmed.

"Why would you need something like this? Traveling between worlds…" Alex could understand it from a perspective of scientific exploration and she probably wouldn't have questioned it at all if it weren't for Piper's choice of words. She said she needed it.

"It was just… something I wanted to do," Piper said, lowering her eyes to focus on the fingers in her lap.

She was glad for the chance to explain herself but also a little terrified if she were honest. Even though she had time to get to grips with it and even though she had played several scenarios out in her head… there was no way to prepare for something like this. And all the time the stakes – what she, what _they_ stood to lose if she didn't get this right – weighed down on her, growing heavier with each passing minute.

Alex knew Piper was holding back but wasn't going to push in case the information was even crazier than what she was currently trying to wrap her head around.

"You were telling me about the time travel thing…" she said then, feeling like her head was filling up to the point of bursting but not being able to stop herself all the same.

Piper nodded. "I'm still not completely happy with it and there are a few glitches, like…" she cast Alex with a searching look, "…like memory."

"Memory?"

"There seems to be some kind of amnesia in some cases. Sometimes you remember everything. Sometimes nothing." Piper paused to fix Alex with a puzzling look but quickly brushed off whatever daze had befallen her and went on. "I haven't had time to iron out the details. Or pinpoint an exact point of entry in time when making the jump. That one's really hard. Or-"

"Slow down…" Alex held up her hands to get Piper to stop her runaway train of thought. "Is this the past or the present?" She sounded crazy to her own ears but she asked the question anyway.

Whether she wanted an answer to it… she was still unsure. But the more she heard, the more she felt like nothing she knew was real and that Piper was the only one who could confirm or deny anything.

Piper looked at her, almost apologetically. "Past," she said, her voice soft. "My present is 2015." Alex's eyes widened. "I've been trying something but… it hasn't been working. This is the furthest back I've come. Like I said, I haven't really figured out the whole Time situation-"

"This is insane," Alex said breathlessly, almost to herself, and rose from the couch. Pacing was better. It gave her something to do other than just sit there and slowly freak out.

Piper could see her mind racing behind her eyes and felt helpless. She wished she could make her understand in an instant. That they could just skip this part entirely.

Alex felt like her brain was trying to angle on something but she didn't know what. She was asking questions and Piper was all too forthcoming with answers, but none of them felt like the ones she was looking for. She looked at Piper looking up at her, those eyes searching hers. Like she was looking for something deep inside. Or someone… Alex felt her stomach come alive with flutters. That look. She'd seen Piper do it more than once. In the basement after she'd first arrived from Litchfield, when they'd gone to Red's… There were a few occasions in the short time she'd been here that she could pick out moments when Piper would stare at her that way. She'd written it off as nothing, but now… now she wasn't so sure.

"How many times have you done this?" Alex asked, and something in her brain clicked. She felt like she was on to something.

Piper swallowed. "This is my fifth."

"Five times?!"

Piper said nothing and dropped her eyes.

"You said you're trying something." Alex wasn't about to let her off the hook just yet. "What is it? What are you doing that's got you so obsessed you're risking your life for it? If this is the furthest back you've come then this is the first time Larry's been taken, right? So then it's not that. Not him." Alex could feel her brain barreling along to connect the jumble of dots and there was nothing she could do to stop it. "Five times. What for? And why would you even risk it knowing that you'll have Kubra to deal with? Why write the stupid equation at all?"

Just then a beeping sound filled the room and Piper jumped up from the couch, grabbing for something in the pocket of her shorts. Alex watched her remove a cellphone and realized that was where the sound was coming from. Piper killed the timer and buried the phone back in her pocket.

"It's time. Follow me," she said and hurried out of the living room.

Time for what? Alex still had about a bazillion questions but she couldn't very well get to the answers without Piper, and so took off after her – down the hall and toward the basement. Piper didn't even spare a glance at the locks that were now dangling on the broken door frame but they made Alex stop dead in her tracks. Those people had been everywhere, missed nothing. What wouldn't they do to get what they wanted? That was at least one question Alex could answer without Piper's help. Could probably answer better than anyone. A chill traveled the length of her spine and settled in her legs, making them lose all feeling as she descended the steep staircase in pursuit of Piper who had already disappeared into the dingy room.


	10. Chapter 10

_Hi everyone! I know it's late in the week but at least it's here right? I don't have wifi at home which makes updating a bit of a chore since I can't exactly abuse school resources until I'm back next year. But none of that is why you are here. Chapter 10. That's why you are here._

 _I'm so excited to finally be posting this chapter because THIS is the part I have been aching to share with you since before the first chapter was even written. It is also the part that brings us to an end. It has been so amazing to write for you, and so wonderful to read all your comments. The last chapter especially inspired some great theories that was very interesting to read. Thanks for sharing them and your enthusiasm and your love for this little story of mine._

* * *

 **The Equation – Chapter 10**

* * *

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 **Sunday, May 26** **th** **, 2013**

 **/**

Only a day had passed – a few hours if you got technical – since she'd last been down there, but it was enough to leave Alex feeling like she was in a space she didn't know at all. It wasn't overturned like the rest of the house – it wasn't that. In fact, the basement looked exactly the way they had left it the night before. But it felt different. Colder. Darker than she remembered. Empty. An unsettling feeling crawled the length of her spine to prickle on the back of her neck with spindly fingers. It was everything she couldn't see that was disturbing her. The things they touched and looked at and left no trace of…

"Alex, are you listening?"

Alex blinked a few times and looked at Piper looking at her expectantly. She hadn't been listening. Too many things were happening at the same time and she was having a hard time keeping up. Alternate universes, time jumps, and suddenly all her questions had to be put on hold so Piper could hurry down here to grab a dirty old rucksack? Alex looked at the faded black bag Piper was holding onto.

"Is that the flux capacitor?" Alex asked. "You going to zap us back in time so we can kill baby Kubra in his crib?"

Piper stared at her tight-lipped. "Don't. There's no time for-"

"No time? No problem!" Alex exclaimed with an overly dramatic promotional air. "You can just make some more, right? I mean, we can just go back and do this all again."

Piper shook her head. "Look, I know this is a lot to take in but I need you to stay with me," she tried keeping her voice smooth and calm as she spoke despite the mess of emotions raging inside her. "I need you to stay calm and-"

"I'm calm." Alex raised her arms and let them fall to her sides. "As calm as I can be, anyway. Considering…" She walked over to the bean bag they had done most of their research in the day before and flopped down onto it as if that would prove just how calm she was. "And no, I wasn't listening. What's in the bag?"

Piper tossed it over to her without a word and surprisingly, Alex's reflexes were still in check – she caught it a split second before it would have made contact with her face. By the time Alex had moved the bag out of the way, Piper was already all the way over by her desk, taking up the chair. She watched as Piper wheeled closer, using the tips of her toes to edge the chair along, stopping only once one of the swivels hit the bean bag. Piper leaned over, elbows on knees, and looked at her.

"I put that together for you," she said. "I need you to take it, and go to the bus station."

"Yeah? Where are you going to be?" Alex asked, her mind kicking into high gear once again.

"It doesn't matter," Piper said and Alex shook her head. "No, hear me out-" Alex muted the argument that was about to happen and listened. "I've given you a cell phone, there's a few changes of clothes…"

"What are you doing?" Alex's voice was soft when she spoke, her fear becoming this real live thing growing in the small space between them.

"…and money," Piper said and swallowed. "It's not everything, but it's some of what I owe you. I'll settle the rest after-"

"I don't want it."

The bag became like hot coal in Alex's hands and she pushed it off her lap with such force it slid across the floor to land just under the huge dining table that stood in the middle of the room.

"Alex-"

"No. You're paying me off?" She shoved off from the bean bag and towered over Piper, who instinctively straightened in her chair and rolled back. "You got what you wanted and now it's what? Thanks for your services, please hit the road?"

"If you just let me explain-"

"Explain how you used me to get to Kubra and now that you know where he is, now you're planning on going over to that warehouse by yourself?"

Piper stood up, the backs of her knees knocking out the chair and sending it into a free-roll right into the wall behind her. She was ready for the fight, had even allowed for it in her calculations of how much time she would need. She just hoped it ended the way she needed it to – with her winning.

"I have a plan and yes, you're right, I don't need you for this part." Piper struggled to keep her voice even.

"What are you going to do, Piper? Walk over there and ring the doorbell? Politely request that they release their captive? Are you insane?" Alex fumed. She wasn't sure what had her more upset – Piper's stubbornness or Piper's payment. Piper sending her away.

"Larry's my problem, not yours."

"You wanted my help because of what I know. I can still help you," Alex said. "Let me help you with this."

"Goddammit Alex, I don't have time!" Piper snapped, the fraying edges starting to peek through. Alex's stubbornness forcing them through. "You don't understand what's happening..."

"Then tell me!..." Alex met her head on – backing down wasn't something she was interested in.

"There isn't time!"

"Tell me anyway! I'm not moving until you speak the fuck up. Fuck your plan, and fuck your bag because I'm standing right here until-"

"They're not done!" Piper's shoulders dropped with the last of the fight in her. God, this woman was impossible to break. " _He's_ not done. The kitchen counter upstairs…" Alex knew instantly. Piper's scrambled working out while she'd been in the shower. She knew something was wrong the second she saw it. "After they were here and didn't find anything," Piper said, "the most likely chain of events is the one where they come back. For me."

"So then what are we still doing here? Let's go." Alex grabbed her hand and started in the direction of the stairs. But she didn't get very far. Alex turned to find Piper rooted to the spot.

Piper pulled her hand free, fixing Alex with an apologetic look that made the brunette's stomach drop.

"This isn't your fight."

"The hell it isn't." Alex folded her arms across her chest – the universal sign of someone ready to not do as they are told.

"I need you to go. I need you to get out of here before he gets back," Piper tried again, firmer this time.

"I already told you-" But Alex stopped the thought right there. Something wasn't sitting right with her and it was more than Kubra and all the sci-fi bullshit she'd had to digest in the last few minutes.

It was in the look on Piper's face. Her words. Once again, the specific choice of words that gave Alex pause. All of her questions centered on the same thing, she realized, and in an instant Alex knew what it was that was bugging her. The thing she couldn't put her finger on… For the first time since they'd started talking in that kitchen, Alex felt her mind stop its racing, its constant grappling at straws of information in a desperate attempt to make sense of it all.

"Who are you?" she asked, unfolding her arms and slowly approaching Piper, studying her closely.

"What? You know who I am." Now Piper was the one folding her arms across her chest.

"No," Alex said as she came to stand in front of Piper. She took a finger and wedged it between Piper's arms, tugging so that they came apart and dropped to her sides. "I mean, who are you… _to me_..."

Those last two words were barely a breath but they packed the punch that took the wind right out of Piper's lungs. She sank to sit on the edge of her desk, thinking about how Alex couldn't have picked a worse time to finally catch on.

Alex waited, afraid to even breathe in case she missed something vital. Piper wouldn't look at her, was making an effort to study the spiral of numbers on her t-shirt instead, and that's when Alex knew. She knew she'd finally asked the right question. Those looks, the inexplicable pull she felt whenever she was in Piper's orbit, the feelings she had and couldn't explain… If Piper's been traveling around in time and universes, and their paths crossed in this one… was it so absurd to think their paths might have crossed before?

"Two months ago today," Piper whispered to the print on Alex's t-shirt – the shirt she had given her to wear. "My fiancé was… murdered." An uncontrollable gasp broke off the rest of it and Piper choked it back, swallowing hard. It was the first time she had said it out loud.

She looked at Alex, eyes welled up with tears that didn't fall, waiting for her to say something. She didn't. She was giving Piper the floor with this one. Piper took a steadying breath and went on.

"We tried to keep moving, never stayed in one place too long. It was exhausting. You asked why I wanted this equation… that's why. Because we were tired of running."

"Jesus," Alex breathed the word. She didn't have anything more eloquent to offer.

When Piper first spoke about her fiancé Alex had accused her of not loving him. And now that she was getting the full story – it turned out she loved him so much she was ready to break through space and time for him…

"They got to her before I had it ready," Piper said then. "That's why it's taken me this long… so many attempts… I've had to figure out the flaws along the way. The call to my professor was three weeks ago, when I was trying to work through the whole-"

But Alex's mind had snagged on something. "Her?" Piper's face gave nothing away and so Alex tried again, her heart hammering in her chest, because she was just starting to wonder how any of this had anything to do with how Piper knew her… "They got to _her_ before you had it ready?"

For a second it looked as if a small smile was trying to take Piper's mouth but it came off as a twitch. "I believe the amnesia's temporary. It's like the more time we spend together, the more you-"

Alex took a step back, shaking her head. "What are you saying?"

Piper slid off the edge of the desk and started toward her, closing the distance Alex was trying to make.

"I'm saying when I cut my hand, you knew where we keep the first aid kit. You went straight for it without asking."

Alex was still shaking her head. Eyes wide, her blood cold in her veins. She hadn't spared it a second thought, really. All she wanted was to help Piper. It was all she was thinking about at the time.

"And upstairs," Piper went on, "when I walked out of the room and you called me back…" her throat closed up and she swallowed hard. It was difficult saying these things with Alex, Alex and the chaos behind her bright green eyes, Alex who was so close and yet… "You called me Pipes." Piper's voice broke just a little at this. "Nobody calls me that. Just you."

"This is crazy," Alex said. "You're crazy. And you're making me feel like I'm losing my mind too."

"I'm not sure why we didn't stay together coming back here. It's like we were slotted into the timeline at independent points – you in prison, me over here. I wish I had time to explain it all."

"It doesn't make sense."

"It will. I left it all in the bag with the rest of your things. Once you get out of here you can read it and you'll know everything." Piper reached out, half expecting Alex to pull away, but she didn't. Her hand was trembling so much, Piper placed it to her chest and held it in place there with both of hers. "Now you understand why I need you to go. It's my fault Larry got taken and I have to at least try and fix it."

Alex stared at her hand, the feel of the pounding heart beneath its flat palm, the soft but steady hands on top of it. This whole time… all of it… was for her? She was the one Piper's been trying to save? And what was Larry? Collateral damage of Attempt No. 5, apparently. Like her memory. Although if she were honest, hadn't she always known? On a molecular level, like Piper would say. And if it was hard for her to leave Piper to deal with Kubra before, how would knowing all this make it any easier?

"I understand why you want me to go, but now I also understand you know that's not going to happen," Alex said. Piper's face dropped visibly but she made no argument. "Why five times?" Alex asked then. "And don't tell me that's how long it took you to figure out the flaws." She lifted her hand from Piper's chest, watching her closely.

"It just…" Piper dropped her eyes.

Alex took her forefinger and nudged Piper's chin, making her look back up again. Eyes weren't welled up anymore. This time tears were rolling hard.

"Tell me," Alex said, it was a gentle push but a push all the same.

A caustic laugh snapped the air between them for a second and Piper swiped her tears away with the back of her hand. "You know I was never popular. I never felt like part of anything. My whole life… And even so, I never envied any of those people. Happy people… with all those friends and full lives. But I envy the person stuck in time…" She sniffed and brushed another rogue tear from her cheek. "…who only has to go through once what I've had to live three times… losing the love of their life."

Alex said nothing. She stared, stone-faced, at Piper as she sniveled her way to stability. Should there have been a reaching out? A wrapping around of arms? Alex couldn't find it. Her hands tingled, like they wanted to comfort Piper out of their own, but it was a feeling Alex could fight for the moment.

"You were right," Piper carried on. The tears had stopped at least. "He always finds you. Alternate timeline, a whole other set of variables, and somehow-"

"What makes you think this time will be any different?" Alex asked the question that was making it so hard for her right now.

"Because I worked it out," Piper said, her face open and bright, the way it looked when she solved something. "I know what went wrong the last few times and now-"

"I'm not some fucking math problem for you to solve, Piper," Alex said, holding up her hands to ward off Piper's approach.

It worked and Piper stopped dead, utterly puzzled for the first time. "I didn't… I never said that."

"Did you ever think that maybe you keep failing, and I keep…" Alex took a breath. She couldn't say it. "…maybe it's because that's how things are supposed to be."

Piper shook her head vehemently. "I won't accept that."

"It doesn't matter what you do or don't accept!" Alex said, feeling herself coming undone. Too much. It was just too much to bear.

Sure, she'd made peace with the fact that Kubra would likely seal her fate, but it was in the way you make peace with the fact that you're going to die some day. Knowing that 'some day' is a hundred years away and you still have your whole life ahead of you to live out as you want. It was a fake making of peace. And now Piper was about to sacrifice herself for it. For nothing.

"This is my fate," Alex said with a shrug that was meant to hide her fear. "Consequences for my actions. It keeps playing out that way because that's the price I pay for being young and stupid."

Not now, Piper thought. Not after everything… She felt a surge of panic rise in her chest. Stubbornness, disbelief… all those things were accounted for. She didn't expect Alex to accept everything and choose to go toward the light anyway. To make her stop trying to save her…

"But that's just it. This is my fate too. Because I love you, Alex," Piper said desperately. "And I don't believe that out of an infinity of worlds, there isn't at least one where we get to be happy."

"You're going to kill him?" Alex asked, knowing the answer. What else could it be but yes? If Piper had tried everything else and failed… They were in their own timeline, and she was just told to go to a bus station so Piper wasn't planning another time jump or whatever. "He won't let you."

"Piper…" Her name was wrought with static as it filtered into the room.

They both whipped around looking for the source, expecting to find someone standing there that they hadn't noticed because they were so wrapped up in themselves. There was no-one.

"Piper…" It came again.

This time Piper rushed over to her desk, immediately recognizing the voice coming from the speakers hooked up to her PC. She didn't want to look. Knew what she'd see once she did. Her eyes were glued to the monitor and the live video pop-up that had appeared there when she felt Alex come up beside her in a blur. The video was grainy but pulled in really close so there was no mistaking Larry's face that filled the entire square. Swollen eyes, battered and bruised.

"Read it," a disembodied voice ordered and Larry's head was nudged to the side. Most likely by a gun that was also cut out by the extreme close-up.

Piper gripped the edge of the desk with both hands and waited, her heart drumming in her ears.

"Piper," Larry started a third time, his eyes fixed on something just off camera so it seemed as if he was staring at something over Piper's shoulder. "You did not honor the agreement that aimed to resolve things easily." Then his gaze moved, over to the other side, and his mouth pulled down into a pathetic grimace. "Please… please don't do th-" Larry's head thrashed to the side as it took the blow it was dealt, making his cries reverberate through the cheap speakers and slice through Piper's chest. Alex cringed and turned away, not knowing why she came over there in the first place but now finding it impossible to walk away.

"Read," the cold, hard voice came again.

Alex knew it well. She didn't need more than that one syllable. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end and she shuddered away the creeping sensation along her spine.

Larry whimpered, tears and snot collecting on his upper lip, falling in drips every time his mouth moved. "You have knowingly… gone against terms… set out…" His head dropped, turning the little video square into a close-up of black, greasy curls. "Please… I'm begging you…" And his pained cries filled their ears again, swirling through the room as if he were right there with them.

Piper couldn't take it anymore. She fell into Alex, burying her face in her chest, and the arms that came up to hold her… there was no hesitation or uncertainty.

"We have a way of dealing with people who don't know how to use their words," Kubra's voice came again from off-screen.

Alex stroked Piper's head as she felt her shirt moisten with the tears being spilled into it, but for all the distress Piper was in, Alex couldn't get herself to look away. She had to see. Had to know. And once she did – once it became clear what the blade was going to be used for, why they had clamped Larry's tongue and pulled it out of his mouth as far as it would go… That's when she squeezed her eyes tightly shut, wishing she could close her ears the same way. Because god, the screams. Guttural, gut-wrenching. She felt Piper stiffen against her and try to straighten, to look, and she used all her strength to stop her. Whatever Larry was to her, it was clear she cared for him. She shouldn't see that. The screams transformed into a sickening gurgling sound, and then a choking sound, and Alex heard a heavy thud that forced her eyes open. Larry was out of the frame but the stream was still going.

"Oh god." Alex stumbled back with Piper still in her arms, the force of her hitting the cold brick wall behind them finally tearing them apart.

The silence from the speakers made Piper turn back to the monitor. She blinked the tears from her eyes, cocked her head to the side, and blinked again as she watched her living room curtains billowing on the live video stream. Time seemed to stretch and dilate then… She was vaguely aware of Alex behind her, but her focus was on more important things. Time…

Piper reached for the phone in her pocket, punched in a series of numbers and tossed it on the desk. She bolted over to the huge dining table, coming up to it in a home base slide that sent her careening off and to the right – away from her target. One arm shot out and grabbed the table's leg to stop from overshooting as the other snatched up the rucksack. In a scrambling run, Piper doubled back to Alex who was still planted against the wall, breathing uneven, beads of sweat on her forehead. She shoved the bag into Alex's chest and took each of her hands in turn, making them hold onto the damn thing.

"How do you feel?" she asked.

Alex tore her eyes from the monitor to look at Piper. What a stupid question to ask at a time like this. How does she feel? But Alex could tell by the look in Piper's eyes that she was serious. Alex glanced back at the monitor and then at the stairs leading into the basement. They'd be in there soon. Seconds. She felt queasy. Her legs refused to work the way they should. _Feels a little like you're getting seasick…_

Alex glared at Piper. "What did you do?"

Her eyes darted frantically around the room that was starting to phase in and out of focus around her. Now solid, now haze. Intervals of a few seconds each time. Even Piper was part of it. All she was certain of was her own skin and her killer grip on the rucksack.

"I recalibrated the receiver and slipped it into your tea. I knew you wouldn't listen. I needed a way to keep you from him for good." Piper spoke in a flurry of words that came too fast. She took Alex's face in both her hands to force her to look at her. "You're going to be fine. I'll be right behind you."

Alex was already phasing in and out between her hands and Piper felt a prickle of doubt spark in her chest. What if she was wrong? What if the precautions and fixes she'd made didn't work? What if there was no way to get to where Alex was going? Heavy footsteps broke into her frenzied thoughts and Piper leapt at the chance to take time when too many times before she had said no. Alex phased in and Piper closed her mouth with hers.

Alex had heard the footsteps too. More than just one person. Making their way down the stairs and into the basement. To Piper. The woman she knew she loved even when she didn't know it. The woman she was now leaving to face god knew what kind of horrors all on her own. So when she felt Piper's lips, her only instinct was to hold on – as hard as she could, for as long as she could.

Everything about that moment was desperate, but the kiss wasn't. Like many moments they'd shared over the past few days, time seemed to suspend itself just for them. It wasn't hurried like when you know you'll be parting soon, or frantic like when you know you might not get another chance. There was an eternity behind and before them, and there was no other place they needed to be. Alex parted her lips, accepting the warmth Piper gently offered. Needing no further explanation or science lessons to accept the reason her chest was full to bursting.

She was the one to break the contact first, and casting her eyes up to the stairs she could make out three pairs of legs clad in black pants.

"Take it back. Make it stop. I don't want to leave y-"

Piper pressed her eyes shut, feeling the sting of her tears and the painful lump in her throat as she willed them not to fall. She rested her head against the cold brick wall where a split second ago Alex stood pleading. Her hands that were holding onto her face, now empty and just as cold. Piper balled them into tight fists as she felt the air shift behind her.

"Like my little show?" Kubra sneered. "Tested great with audiences 18-35. We got a three-season deal with Netflix."

The sound of his sniggers cut through Piper and she turned to face him, her expression like steel.

Kubra looked around, hands in his pockets, flanked by his two thugs. Piper noticed some blood on his shirt and averted her eyes. Larry was still up there – bleeding out in her living room.

"I have to say I'm disappointed it's just you, but I'm not surprised. Alex was always good at disappearing. But then again, I've always been good at finding her so I'm not too worried about it. What I am concerned about, however…" He approached Piper slowly. "…is our transaction. You owe me something."

"I don't owe you shit," Piper said through gritted teeth. She messed up, allowed herself to get distracted by Alex, and that little video stunt? That was genius. More time-wasting, though. Now Piper found herself scrambling for a plan B.

Kubra's face broke into a wide, smug grin. "Tell me where it is."

"The deal was you don't hurt him. You fucked it up all on your own."

"No!" Piper startled at the sound of Kubra's booming voice in conjunction with his fist as it hit the dining table. " _You_ were the one who decided to change the rules." He wasn't smiling anymore. "Give me the equation and we'll walk out of here. You still have time to get your lover boy to the hospital. No chance he'll talk again, but he'll live."

The thug on Kubra's right swung his arm and Piper watched in horror as Larry's tongue swirled through the air, landing in a bloody mess on the table with a sickening squelch.

"Now, if you refuse to do any talking either," Kubra went on, "it's going to be a whole lot harder to make that 911 call. Bring her," he motioned to the thug on his left with a whirl of his finger and the guy jumped to attention, striding across the floor toward Piper.

Piper shrunk back but it was more a reflex than the desire to run. She was through running. The thug twisted a handful of hair through his gloved fingers and dragged her toward the table.

"Get her down," Kubra ordered, his switchblade singing as he flicked it open.

* * *

Alex woke up but didn't open her eyes. She groaned as she made to turn over from her belly onto her back, something that took a lot longer than simply twisting in bed. But even though she made careful work of it, her head still felt like a freight train was barreling through it at top speed. She was getting too old for hangovers. Two loud thuds thundered through her bedroom door, making her wince.

"Breakfast!" The voice was purposely louder than it had to be. Punishing her, no doubt. Another double thud against the door and then footsteps moving away and into the kitchen.

Alex rolled over onto her side and grabbed her phone. It was almost noon. Okay, she'd fucked up. Maybe even deserved the insensitive wake-up call. But when did she have the luxury of being home over Thanksgiving? That was a gift in itself. Surely that bought her a proper night out with her friends. Friends she hadn't seen in over a year.

The smell of bacon wafted into her room and Alex's stomach growled. The arguments for staying put and getting her ass up were now equally valid.

"Fresh coffee!" came the vindictive voice from the kitchen.

Okay, the argument for getting up just edged ahead. Alex threw aside the covers and slowly pushed to sit, feeling at once twelve years old and much too big for her childhood bed. She looked down, surprised to find herself fully clothed in her jeans and… someone else's shirt apparently. She tugged at the faded green t-shirt, squinting at the upside spiral of numbers on her chest.

"What the fuck happened last night?" she mumbled under her breath and slid off the bed in a series of old lady grunts and groans.

She stretched, twisted her back until she heard it crack, then made her way toward the door. Her foot caught on something just as she rounded the foot of her bed, sending her into a stumble of flailing arms that led her straight into her bedroom door with a crash as she met it head first. The smack pummeled through her head and made her ears ring.

"Nice one, Alex," she reprimanded herself before pulling open the door to follow the homely smells of breakfast.

* * *

"First night back and you can't spare a moment for me."

Alex rubbed the tender spot on her head as she took up one of the two bar stools at the kitchen counter.

"You get to have me all day today," she said, taking a sip of the freshly poured orange juice that was just set down for her.

"I'm off to work," came the huffy reply.

"Why do you still do that? I send you more than enough money," Alex said, stuffing a rasher of bacon into her mouth and then following it up with another for good measure.

"I'd miss my friends too much."

"You can see them outside of work. Go out," Alex grumbled through a mouth full of half-chewed bacon.

"And be like you? No thanks. I have my dignity." An eye-roll was the only response Alex bothered for that one. "Look, I made pancakes too." A plate got shoved under her nose.

"Is that a-?"

"Dick. Yes. I wanted to make shapes that reminded me of my darling daughter."

"Gross." Alex shoved the offensive dick pancake away from her face. "God, Mom, why do you have to give me a hard time about this? I'm never home, and when I am-"

"When you are home, I'd appreciate it if you act like you miss your mother while you're prancing around the world living the high life."

"It's hardly the high life."

"Okay fine," Diane Vause said, pulling on her coat. "You can tell me all about it over the dinner you're paying for, at a restaurant that doesn't employ me." She planted a kiss on Alex's cheek.

"Wh- I already have dinner plans," Alex called after her mother who was already making her way out of the kitchen.

"Pick me up at five. Love you," her mother yelled from the living room, and Alex heard the front door open and close abruptly.

The joys of coming home… And to think, she actually did miss her mother. Even with the almost daily phone calls. She was just really bad at showing it, clearly. Alex reached over to grab a few of the normal, round pancakes and dropped them in her plate, refilled her juice and pulled that morning's Post closer to scan the headlines. Greater efforts will have to be made, she thought to herself. Keep the old lady happy. She folded a few strips of bacon into the top pancake and took a bite, absently rubbing the spot on her forehead that had collided with her bedroom door as she read about the end of an era with Oprah Winfrey bowing out of daytime. And between that, the incessant throbbing in her head, and her mother – Alex had enough going on to keep her from questioning the cause of that bedroom stumble. She didn't question it, and so there was no further inspection of the area under her bed, and therefore no discovery of the dirty old rucksack that was lodged there.

 **/**

 **Thursday, November 19** **th** **, 2009**

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* * *

 **The Equation – End of Part 1**


	11. Part 2: Chapter 1

_Hi everyone! Infinite thanks for your comments on the close of Part 1. I am still amazed at the traction this strange story has achieved, and I still appreciate every one of you for taking the time to read and review:)_

 _In trying to figure out the best way to bring you this second part, it ended up growing into something even bigger than I imagined. I am so excited to tell you how it goes!_

 _Special thanks to BL-is-love for the help and support with the nuts and bolts of Part 2. I couldn't have done this without you._

* * *

 **The Equation - Part 2:**

 **The Woman from the Other Side**

 **Chapter 1**

 **/**

 **Thursday, November 19** **th** **, 2009**

 **/**

The bathroom tiles were cold relief against her bare arms. Her face coated with a thin film of sweat, Alex lay deathly still, breathing slow and deep as she waited for another wave of nausea to pass. Her head was pounding and at the same time spinning with too many thoughts to grab hold of.

Breakfast didn't last long. The migraine is what did it – a pain that knifed straight between her eyes and left her ears ringing. Suddenly the kitchen was too bright and her stomach too moody. With her eyes squeezed shut to ward off the stabbing daylight raging in through the kitchen window, Alex stumbled down the hall – taking a right and bursting into her bedroom before realizing it should have been a left – and fell to her knees in front of the toilet. She spent good time down there, but for all the puke and pain, the one thing Alex kept thinking was jetlag didn't feel like this.

Now, with the nausea still there but with nothing to do because her body was depleted, she lay stretched out on her back on the bathroom floor, feeling like death warmed up. And the whole time something played at the back of her overwrought mind – like that feeling when you've left home in a hurry and for the rest of the day you know you've forgotten something, but just can't figure out what. But there was so much else going on in her head too, that Alex didn't give that nagging feeling much thought. More important questions pressed her, like what in the hell did Nicky do to her and why in that same hell did she leave her with Diane instead of taking her to her own apartment? Her place with her own things. Familiar comforts that would have made all of this easier. She would've been able to change into her own clothes for one, she thought, feeling even more out of place and unsettled in the old t-shirt and jeans that didn't have their usual fit.

Alex stared at the ceiling, picking out the places where the old paint was beginning to peel. They had multiplied since the last time she'd been there. Or they shouldn't even be there, now that she thought about it. Hadn't they given it a fresh coat last spring? She could've sworn there was a memory in her muddled head somewhere, of her on a rickety step ladder, scraping old paint from the cornices before giving it a few new coats. She let out a slow breath. For some reason the mundane had a calming effect on her and the tension in her muscles seeped out onto the cool tiles under her. Her head was still pounding, but at least she was no longer overcome with the urge to throw up.

Both her hands grasped the side of the bathtub for support and she pulled herself to standing. A dull snap prickled the quiet of the bathroom just as she came up straight, and she felt something shifting around her middle. Glancing up into the mirror on the door of the small cabinet fixed above the sink she could make out a pronounced bunching of something under her t-shirt. She lifted it and stared down at the bandaged binding that her labored movements had caused to come undone and pool around her middle.

"What the-?" Alex gave the bandage a light tug and watched it fall to her feet.

Her mind plummeted into its farthest recesses in a desperate effort to find the explanation for it. She had obviously gotten hurt somehow, bad enough to be strapped up. But how? And when? But there were no answers for her grappling mind to land on. She was ready to explain away her current condition to picking up a nasty bug on the plane home, made worse by a rough night out. But viruses didn't mess with your memory, did they? Even when mixed with alcohol. This couldn't be that. This was something else.

Alex twisted her torso, first to the left and then all the way to the right, as if she were testing it out. She felt nothing. Nothing hurt. And the mirror didn't show any bruising that she could see. So then why was she strapped up in the first place? Alex's thoughts landed on Nicky again, and as exhausted and sick as she felt, she knew the only way she'd rest was if she got some answers to the questions banging around her head. And Nicky was the only one in any kind of position to help with that.

* * *

It was just after 2pm when the bus crawled to a stop down the street from Nicky's offices. Alex stepped into the icy wind and immediately regretted not taking the time to check her mother's closet for something a little more suited to late fall in Boston. But once she'd had it in her head to see Nicky, she couldn't get out of there fast enough. Only stopping to pull on her high-tops and borrow some change from the kitchen counter. The beige double knit sweater Diane liked to wear before bed was strewn over the back of the couch, and Alex grabbed it as a last thought on her way out.

She hugged herself tightly, trying to block as many of the spaces that were knit into the sweater. It was a useless endeavor. By the time Alex reached her destination, puddles left by last night's rain had splashed through the canvas of her shoes, and she had lost all feeling in her hands and face. The wind had cut straight into her bones, freezing her from the inside out. Finally laying eyes on the painfully forlorn office building wedged between a book store and Chipotle, was like an oasis for someone lost in the desert. Alex quickened her pace. As she passed the restaurant, the smell of meat and spices wafted thick and heavy along the sidewalk to torture her still sensitive stomach, and made her walk even faster. Spewing her guts in public wasn't on her list of things to accomplish that day.

As she drew up to Nicky's office, a couple of women splashing across the road caught her eye. They were talking and laughing at the same time, and there was nothing extraordinary about them that should have made Alex stop, but she stood there and watched them anyway. Maybe it was because everything about them was the complete opposite of how she was feeling – their smiling faces, easy postures, clearly not weighed down by anything. Only once they ducked into the book store, in their sensible coats and boots, did Alex become aware of the cold again. Hugging her sweater closer, she blustered into the inviting warmth of Nicky's office in a flurry of shivers, mumbling obscenities under her breath and rubbing her arms to get the blood flowing again.

It was a humble setup – old devices and even older furniture secured at several close-of-business auctions – in one small open plan room with gray carpet squares right out of the 70s. There was a small pine coffee table with magazines in one corner. Four mismatched chairs were added to make it the official waiting area. Two desks were side by side on the opposite end of the room. One was a work space, with an ancient CRT monitor taking up most of its surface. It wasn't occupied at the moment. The other was a kitchenette apparently, holding a cordless kettle that used to be white, a few cups, and Tupperware with coffee, sugar, tea.

It wasn't much, but Alex knew it was everything. The first time Nicky cared about something after her last stint in rehab. And the first time rehab stuck. Alex knew it was no coincidence that those two things coincided. Nicky's youth counseling and development initiative was more than a fleeting whim, like all the other false starts she'd had at cleaning up her act. It was honest and it was good, and Alex believed it helped Nicky just as much as the troubled teens who came and went through those doors.

"Hello?" A petite, slender woman appeared at the end of the hall that Alex was meant to go down. Her greeting was intended to be polite, but Alex caught the question in it. She also caught the once-over she was getting and shifted uncomfortably. "Can I help you?" The woman spelled out the question of her greeting, her accent rooting her deep in Brooklyn somewhere.

She had perfectly coiffed dark hair and red lips that, when set against her fair skin, made her look like one of those rockabilly pin-up girls. Alex picked her for a new hire – definitely a step up from the round, middle-aged woman that used to be there, and therefore most likely Nicky's most recent significant other. It was a predictable habit of hers, and the one thing so far that Alex could depend on to remain consistent. Catching up with Nicky each time she got back from a trip meant being introduced to someone new she was occupying her time with.

"Nicky around?" Alex asked, instantly recognizing the shift in the woman's features at the mention of her friend's name. So her assumption was right.

The friendly face broke into a friendly smile. "Oh I'm sorry, our services are for under 25s only."

Alex was caught off guard by the comment. She knew she probably looked like shit, but people always commented on how young she looked for her age. Never the other way around.

"Excuse me?" she asked, trying to keep the tone of mild offense to a minimum.

"I didn't mean it like that," the woman said quickly, realizing her error. "I just meant we don't cater to the over-30s demographic." And then immediately made it worse. Her smile was still holding though, like she was totally oblivious to the fact she was being insulting.

Alex folded her arms defensively across her chest, biting her tongue against saying something that might make socializing with her later on a little awkward.

"This is a center for _youth_ counseling," the woman continued, and walked over to the kitchenette. "Here, I'll get you a coffee to warm you up and find some numbers of places you can-" She turned around to see Alex making her way toward the hallway. It led to two offices and a bathroom, and something told her Alex wasn't on her way to go pee. "Wait!" she called after her.

But Alex had already turned the knob to the door on her left and opened it.

The scene: A young girl bawling her eyes out and blubbering incoherently while a woman sat across from her, silent and nodding. The girl didn't notice the intrusion, but the woman looked over at Alex, and after a second her eyes grew wide. With recognition, surprise maybe? Alex wasn't sure but she didn't care.

"Sorry," she apologized quickly and pulled the door closed again.

The friendly insulter from the front office was with her now, just as she turned to open the door opposite the one she'd closed. The right one this time.

"She's in session," the woman said in an exaggerated whisper to try and stop Alex.

But it came too late.

"My mom's complicated," a scruffy-looking boy was saying. He couldn't be older than seventeen or eighteen. On the chubby side with a mess of red-blonde hair obscuring most of his face.

Nicky looked up and her face immediately mirrored the stunned expression of the woman in the other office. Alex was so relieved though, it didn't occur to her to analyze the situation. That urgency that drove her through the cold and rain finally settled.

"Holy smokin' hydrangeas," the boy said, looking Alex up and down.

She brushed him off with a patronizing smile, used to warding off unwanted advances from the male species.

"Sorry, I tried to tell her…" The red-lipped woman pushed in.

Nicky rose from her chair and held up both her hands to stop her speaking. "It's okay," she said, sounding almost careful, not taking her eyes off Alex. "We were finishing up anyway."

"Sweet," the boy said, getting up. "But you'll-"

"I'll mark it down as a full hour," Nicky assured him, and gave his shoulder a little push just to speed his exit along. "Your probation's safe with me, don't sweat it."

The boy smiled gratefully, and let Nicky usher him out of the office. He waggled his eyebrows suggestively at Alex and sidled by a little closer than necessary.

"Okay, keep it in your pants, she bats for the other team," Nicky said, giving him a final shove through the doorway. "See him out, will you, Lorna?"

"You sure know how to pick 'em," Alex said once Nicky had closed the door.

Out of nowhere and for no reason Alex could think, Nicky dealt a thundering blow to her upper arm.

"Ow! What the fuck?" Alex rubbed the spot where it stung.

"That's for not answering your phone," Nicky said, and then punched her again, on the other arm this time. "And that's for going to that stupid show in the first place. Come here." She pulled Alex into a tight hug.

"Ugh, get off me." Alex struggled out of the death grip. "What the hell's the matter with you?"

"With me? What's the matter with you not calling to let us know you're okay? I thought you were one of them-" She choked off and, shaking her head in frustration, strode over to her desk and grabbed the pack of Marlboro's lying next to her laptop. "They said on the news the bodies were too-" Alex saw her hands shake as she lit the cigarette. She took a deep first drag and let it out slowly, careful not to look at Alex. "They haven't been able to make any positive id's yet," she said, changing tack.

"Bodies? Jesus, Nick, what were we on?" Alex asked, going to sit in one of the chairs in front of Nicky's desk, her mind tripping over itself to try and connect the scattered dots.

A deep frown clouded the concern on Nicky's face. "They checked you out before letting you go, right?" She reached out to feel her friend's forehead, like checking for a fever, but Alex swiped her hand away before she could.

"Why would I need to be checked?" Alex heard the agitation in her voice as if she were listening from outside her body.

Nicky was supposed to be clearing up things, not making her more confused and pissing her off in the process. But her questions at least gave Alex some hope. She was talking as if she expected Alex not to be okay. Which would explain the bandage she discovered that morning. So maybe the answers were there. Nicky was just being frustratingly drawn out about giving them to her. An array of emotions were playing over Nicky's face as she watched Alex.

"I woke up feeling like dog shit, and these aren't my clothes. Can you just tell me what we did last night?"

Nicky shook her head slowly and stubbed her half-smoked cigarette in the glass ashtray that was almost overflowing.

"Let's go next door," she said, going around her desk to grab her coat. "We can get a decent cup of coffee and-"

"No." Alex stood up and walked over to wear Nicky was pulling on her heavy tweed coat. "I don't want coffee. I want you to tell me what the hell happened, and why in fuck you had to leave me at Diane's."

"Where do _you_ think you were?" Nicky asked then, fixing a deep red scarf around her neck.

Alex groaned, raking her fingers through her hair in frustration and turned from Nicky to take up pacing the length of the floor in front of her desk.

"I wouldn't be here asking you if I knew, Nick." She gave a defeated shrug and buried her hands in the pockets of her jeans. Her one hand brushed against something small and smooth, and even though she couldn't think what it might be, she started picking at a corner of it. "Everything's so… mixed up. I keep hitting blanks when I try to think of certain things." She looked at Nicky for help, but the woman just stood there with an expression of what looked like sympathy. Alex shook her head in an attempt to straighten the jumbled thoughts in it. "I figured we hooked up to party, as is customary when Kubra gives me some time off." She lowered her voice at the end of her sentence, keeping the decibels on the name decidedly minimal out of pure habit. "But now I'm starting to think this is more than just a bad hangover."

Nicky took a steadying breath and moved slowly back around her desk in silence, past Alex, and to the door to her office. "I haven't seen you in three weeks," she said, and then turned to face Alex from the open doorway. "And what's Kubra?"

* * *

The coffee bar was set up in back of the book store, but the smell of quality beans fetched Alex all the way at the front door. She instantly felt home, and memories of her spending way too much time in the cozy cocoon of books and coffee filled her up. The guy behind the book counter acknowledged her with a nod as she passed, and she nodded back.

"No reserving your spot today, I'm afraid," he said, motioning at the packed store.

"I'll take it up with your manager later," Alex joked, and looked around to catch up with Nicky, who was already deep inside.

The place was brimming with people looking for shelter from the cold, with most of the leather sofa nooks taken up by either readers or conversationalists. She followed Nicky as they wove through the room to the last few available chairs and tables set up near the barista. Frozen to the bone just a few minutes ago, Alex felt the warmth of the wood paneled walls, second-hand book smell, and rich acoustic music wrap around her like a heavy blanket.

She pulled off her sweater and hung it over the back of her chair before sitting down. It was disconcerting – feeling so familiar yet so strange and unsettled at the same time. Surrounded by sights and sounds of home, but feeling like she didn't belong. It was painful trying to make sense of it. Nicky had stopped to order, but Alex was beginning to think that maybe they should've gone somewhere licensed instead. Somewhere she'd have a little more privacy for the impending mental break she was clearly having.

 _I haven't seen you in three weeks_

The tiny hairs on the back of Alex's neck prickled, the sensation creeping all the way down her spine. All of a sudden she wasn't so sure she wanted any answers. She felt like she was out at sea without a life raft. And the sea analogy was perfect, considering her symptoms that morning and how similar to being seasick they were. Her head started to hurt again. She looked over to where Nicky stood waiting for their coffee, chewing the nails on her one hand, the fingers of her other tapping restlessly on the counter. And then the strangest thing happened.

Alex's mind that was full to bursting a second ago went inexplicably black. Empty. She fixed on the tapping. Nicky's fingers moving independently to their own private rhythm. It was like a kind of hypnotism the way it calmed the storm inside her. The first time since waking up that she felt even remotely okay.

"Are you gonna be using this?"

The trance was broken, and Alex blinked stupidly at a strange man holding onto the empty chair opposite her.

"What?"

"The chair," he said. "We're short one over there." He pointed to the table behind Alex, where his friends were already seated.

"Oh, sorry. My friend's just-"

"Keep it in your pants," Nicky appeared suddenly, holding two cups of steaming coffee. "She bats for the other team." She shouldered the flabbergasted guy out of the way and sat down, sliding Alex's drink toward her.

"I have a girlfriend," he said, a little flustered and more than a little insulted.

"Then I suggest you go to her."

Alex rolled her eyes, feeling embarrassed. "He was just asking for the chair," she said, shooting the poor guy an apologetic look as he walked off.

"My bad." Nicky took a hesitant sip from the piping hot cup. "You can't blame me though. Nine times out of ten the situation is what I thought it was."

Alex shook her head, chuckling softly, and took a sip of her coffee. Grimacing, she made to switch their cups.

"I think you got these mixed up."

Nicky held onto her coffee. "White, two sugars, exactly like mine," she said, surveying her with a puzzled look.

Alex lifted the cardboard cup and checked the boxes on the side. All the wrong ones were ticked. She placed the cup slowly down again, twisting it between thoughtful fingers. She'd shared thousands of coffees with Nicky over the years, always black, always no sugar.

"Okay, I'm gonna be straight with you, kid," Nicky started, and Alex looked up. "I think we need to get you to a hospital." Alex immediately started shaking her head no. "Maybe you took a knock to the head or-"

"No," Alex said. "I would've been able to tell."

"Then someone must've spiked your drink at the show."

"What show?" Alex asked exasperated, palms pressed flat to the table between them, her voice strained from the effort it took not to shout it out at the top of her lungs. "You keep talking about it, but I don't know what that is."

"The pop-up gallery gig in Hyde Park," Nicky explained slowly. It was pretty clear that she was disturbed by the fact that any explanation was even necessary. "Some guy you met in Sao Paulo wanted two of your prints as part of his show. So you went there instead of coming home. You don't remember that?"

"My prints…" Alex lifted her glasses onto her head and massaged her temples. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry or have herself committed to an insane asylum.

Nicky wasn't sympathetic to her struggle, and kept going. As much as Alex was going through whatever she was going through, Nicky was dealing with her own kind of turmoil. It was in her voice and all over her face when next she spoke.

"Alex, six bombs went off there yesterday. The park. We thought… Your mom kept saying you were fine. That she'd know if anything were to happen to you. But you weren't answering your phone and we all thought-"

"Three weeks ago I was in Paris," Alex said quietly, not wanting to hear Nicky talk anymore. Wanting instead to give a voice to the runaway thoughts in her head. Like saying it out loud would help solidify the jumbled fog-like images in her head. "You didn't see me three weeks ago. I haven't been home in almost a year," Alex's desperation over the whole situation was becoming harder to hide. "And what would I be doing at some gallery in London? Can you not hear how insane that sounds?" She straightened, looking around to see if anyone else picked up on her raised voice but was relieved to see everyone around her was engrossed in their own lives.

"You think I'm the one who sounds crazy? Try seeing this from where I'm sitting. I mean, you're saying some weird shit, kid. Like cobra. Cobra giving you time off. What the fuck is that? You haven't had a boss in your life."

Alex would've laughed if it wasn't so goddamn crazy. Never had a boss? There were times when she wished it. Maybe it was Nicky who was losing her mind. Her last stop was Berlin. She could've sworn it was Berlin. Fahri's PA/fuck buddy had botched the booking and Alex was forced to share a double room with him. That definitely happened. She could still smell his socks if she concentrated hard enough. Of all the blanks her memory was hitting, that wasn't one. She recalled her time there with crystal clarity. Alex burrowed into it, indulging in the feeling of knowing something for sure… The room at the Westin Grand, stopping for drinks at Newton and Fahri's face when she ordered Macallan on his tab, the huge marquee with Derek's pictures, taking off her shoes so she could feel the grass under her feet, the atmosphere in the park once the-

"No." Alex shook her head again. "That's not what happened. I wasn't there." Is this what losing your mind felt like?

It had to be some kind of transference. She probably saw the story about the bombing in that morning's paper, and her mind took care of the rest by planting some kind of false memory.

She looked over at Nicky for reassurance, and found her friend going through her cell phone instead of paying attention to her meltdown. Alex was too stunned to say anything, so waited the few seconds it took for Nicky to find what she was looking for. She held up her phone for Alex to see, and if stunned was what she was a second ago… Alex stared at the phone, unable to speak, barely managing to breathe past the lump in her throat, the solid floor seeming to shift and tilt beneath her feet.

"But I wasn't there," she said again, but with way less conviction than before.

Nicky tapped the phone's screen to bring up the time stamp on the photo message: _Yesterday, 13:07pm._

Alex shook her head in disbelief. Her own face was grinning broadly back at her from the photo. A selfie snapped in front of a fountain. The frame captured parts of it – two bronzed people holding hands as they danced in the water. Alex recognized it instantly. The Joy of Life fountain. In Hyde Park, London.

Nicky took her phone back and studied the picture closely. "You sent this to me a few hours before it happened. How are you here and totally fine," she looked up at Alex, "when you were obviously there when those bombs went off?"

Alex said nothing. Gooseflesh broke out all over that had nothing to do with being cold. Her brain felt like it was caught up in an electrical storm, slowly being fried from the inside out. There were these flashes, constant threads of several things coming at her all at once and in a muddled mess. She was in London at the opening of Derek's show. In Berlin closing a deal with one of Kubra's top clients. Two of her own prints on display. Kubra wanted her to handle the deal personally. She's an urban photographer. She's a smuggler for an international drug cartel.

Nicky lives in Manhattan.

No, Boston.

Her mother wants to meet for dinner.

No.

Her mother is dead.

"I think a hospital is a good idea," Nicky said, taking hold of Alex's trembling hand.

But Alex pulled away from her. "I said no."

"Alex-"

"They won't find anything." And for some reason, this was the only thing Alex felt deadly certain of in that moment. Whatever was wrong with her wasn't going to show up on any tests.

It wasn't drugs and it wasn't jetlag. Or a virus, or a hangover…

Where before, the lazy acoustic music was background to Alex's turmoil, the lilting notes of Mazzy Star's Fade Into You jumped out at her as it started up, filtering through the book store and the chaos inside her. She felt her heart rate spike the moment she recognized the song. It was like the height of her fear and confusion reached a peak in perfect timing with it, bundling up everything she was feeling into downright panic.

"I have to get out of here." The table shuddered from the force of Alex shooting out of her chair, and Nicky had to grab hold of their cups to keep them from spilling over.

"Alex, wait."

But she couldn't. Outside was the only thing she cared about. Getting out into a space where she could catch a breath. She didn't care how cold it was. In fact, cold was what she was after, because in here it felt like she was suffocating. Alex made for the front door with determined purpose. She couldn't breathe, let alone think a straight thought. So caught up in it all that she didn't realize she was about to collide with someone at the coffee counter until it was too late, and the woman's scalding order was all over her shirt and the floor around them.

"Fuck, that's hot," the young woman said, trying to adopt a position that would keep as little of her t-shirt from touching her as possible.

"Shit, I'm so sorry," Alex muttered, grabbing some napkins from the counter and dabbing at the stained MIT print on the woman's chest.

Girl, Alex's brain corrected her, not woman. She didn't look a day over 21. And when she looked up at her face to double check, Alex immediately placed the smile and perfect teeth. She was one of the women Alex saw crossing the street outside Nicky's office a few minutes ago. And being close enough to see the exact blues of her eyes, smell the feint hint of almonds on her freshly washed blonde hair, Alex also realized there was a good reason the sight of the girl crossing that street made her stop in her tracks. The dabbing became awkward.

"It's okay, we were both distracted," the girl said. "It's Thursday - I should've been on the lookout for charging patrons." She laughed lightly, and Alex found herself suppressing something similar. "I got it, thanks." She gently took the soaked napkins from Alex, their fingers glancing in the motion.

"Sorry about the shirt," Alex offered a meek apology. "I'll pay for a new one. How much do I owe you?" She went for her back pocket, where on a normal day, she'd have found her wallet.

Finding it empty only reminded her how completely not normal this day was. Reminded her that now wasn't the time to be noticing pretty girls in book shops. Something twisted in her stomach, and Alex felt that familiar wave of nausea roll in from somewhere in the distance.

"It's fine. Really," the girl said, picking up that something was kind of off with Alex and wanting to give her a break. "Not like it's a limited run NerdWorld that was only available online for twelve hours before disappearing into the realm of missed opportunities. If you missed it, that is."

"Excuse me?"

The woman nodded at Alex's shirt. "Sorry, I'm geeking out over your shirt. I wasn't part of the lucky one hundred that day, and seeing it just brought up a lot of unrequited emotions I wasn't ready for."

Something sparked in Alex's mind then. The t-shirt wasn't hers. And there was a limited quantity out there. If she could track down who it belonged to, she might be able to piece things together.

"Are you okay?" the girl asked off Alex's silent consideration.

"I'm fine," Alex lied. "I just- have to go. You?"

"Fine," the girl said with a wave of her hand.

"Sorry. Again." Alex forced what she hoped looked like a smile of apology, before hurrying off. A slower pace to avoid another collision, but no less determined than before.

More determined, in fact. Now that she had a solid place to begin figuring things out.


	12. Part 2: Chapter 2

Hi everyone! Thanks, as always, for your encouraging words on the last chapter. Much appreciated. After the setup in Chapter 1, the story gets deep fast, and I will be adding details of Alex/Piper from the original timeline to give more info on their characters and how they came to be at the point we first meet them in Part 1. Italics = flashbacks to OG timeline :)

Note: Flashbacks are meant as part of the story and not what Alex is remembering. I will make those clear when they happen.

* * *

 **The Equation Part 2:**

 **The Woman from the Other Side**

 **Chapter 2**

 **/**

 _ **2013, November**_

 **/**

 _The gun was a good idea. Alex feels safer with the cool metal pressing into her lower back. Glancing over her shoulder every few minutes has become a reflex though. But the fear is fleeting, no longer crippling. The certainty that she'll turn around and see Kubra's snarling face doesn't last long. Chased away by that feeling against her back._

 _So after three weeks of being holed up in her crappy low-rent apartment, Alex is outside. Walking in daylight, breathing crisp fall air. This is a big deal. Because although there are others on the street there with her, their clothes don't match hers in the slightest. They don't share a bathroom or dining room or bedroom. There are no bars and chain-link fences between them._

 _Alex checks over her shoulder again. Nobody gives a fuck about ex-cons. She digs her hands into the deep pockets of her threadbare coat and continues walking. The gun against her back tells her she doesn't need anyone to give a fuck. Because she can take care of herself._

 _This internal dialogue puts a new spring in her step, and Alex's thoughts turn to things less dark. Like how she's going to spend her first time out in the open since her early release almost a month ago. A prisoner in prison, and then a prisoner outside… Three weeks was about all she could take before cabin fever and downright rage – at the system, at herself, at Kubra – forced her to stop moping and take action. She didn't want to be a prisoner of her own life._

 _The late afternoon sunlight is just for show, thanks to the biting chill in the air, but breathtakingly sharp as it pierces through steadily graying clouds. It'll rain in a few hours. And she'll get to listen to it from her own bed in her own place. The droplets pelting down, spattering tires in the wet streets below, bad slow jazz from Trumpet Guy in the building opposite hers. She might even crack the window and let all of it seep into the bedroom. Alex loved the smell of rain and of the world in the seconds right after a rainfall. It was hot cocoa and marshmallows, even though that was a luxury her mother couldn't afford way back when. It was a mother who did those kinds of things because she never wanted her daughter to feel less than loved to death._

 _She tilts her face slightly upward, wanting to bask but not wanting to attract too much attention to herself. That's when the rich, dark aroma of freshly ground coffee beans wafts out to her, warm and inviting on the chilly sidewalk, calling a pause to her meandering thoughts. She slows to a stop and surveys the front window of the book store/coffee shop. Framed with red tinsel and splotches of fake snow even though the roast turkeys from the week before aren't properly digested yet. Well, roast turkey for some. Hers came in a can, and she ate it cold on two slices of wholegrain toast._

 _Her eyes catch one of books on display there – it's a new release from one of her favorite authors. New titles were non-existent in Litchfield's library. Requesting one implied a painful amount of paperwork that she never had the inclination to go through. Three years of books to catch up on. The warmth from inside the store permeates the barely-there barrier of her overcoat, then her knit sweater, to finally settle like a log fire in her chest. The freedom to read whatever she wanted, whenever and wherever she wanted. The fact that this moment should have happened more than a decade from now isn't lost on her. A good lawyer and good behavior can get you places, and she's determined to show her gratitude for it every chance she gets._

 _Suddenly the question of what the rest of her afternoon looked like is answered, as Alex pushes through the heavy glass doors and steps inside._

 **/**

 **Thursday, November 19** **th** **, 2009**

 **/**

It was hard not to go straight home, take a hot shower, and start her search for the owner of the mystery t-shirt she was wearing. But two things stopped her. First, she didn't take any of her stuff when she left her mom's place earlier that day. Her house keys was among them. Second, there were two home addresses fighting for dominance in her mind and she only had enough money for one cab ride. So Alex spent it on a trip back to where she started.

Expecting to walk into an empty house, Alex was surprised to find Diane sitting in the living room as she came in. The woman promptly rose when she noticed Alex, but said nothing. A little irritated by her presence and what it would mean for her urgent hit-and-run plans, Alex bit down on her jaw.

"I thought you had work," she said.

"Nicky called," Diane replied, studying Alex closely.

Alex gave an exasperated sigh, the matters of the present rooting her in the moment and pushing all else aside. Trust Nicky to not keep her mouth shut about anything.

"I'm fine," Alex said with a shrug. "Nicky's just being Nicky."

She quickly moved through the house, toward her bedroom. Mostly to get what she came for, but also to avoid being the subject of that disconcerting gaze for any longer. Her head was full enough as is. She didn't need to add trying to figure out what Diane was thinking to the mix as well.

Alex strode into her bedroom with purpose, going straight for the bedside table where she'd left her phone. Only, upon picking up the device, Alex realized it wasn't her phone at all. In the groggy moments after waking, she'd checked the time and didn't register anything else about it. Now she thoughtfully turned the phone over in her hands, simultaneously perplexed and curious about the foreign object. An older model with a strange off-market attachment on the back where the battery usually goes. She pressed the button that brought the screen to life. It was blank. No sign of the many missed calls and text messages Nicky spoke of earlier. Further investigation showed no previous calls or messages at all – incoming or outgoing – and there wasn't one contact saved to the phonebook. The time was right, but the date was wrong. Alex shook her head slowly and mentally added the phone to the list of mysteries she was going to solve that day.

She slid the device into the front pocket of her jeans, her hand brushing against the smooth rectangular object she had felt before. This time she pulled it out and found herself looking at an old photo of her as a little girl – nine or ten years old – with Diane. Alex's heart lurched and dropped to her stomach. Her thumb gently brushed the fading and creased face of the older woman in the picture and for no reason she could think of, hot tears stung her eyes.

"She said there's something wrong with you." Diane had suddenly appeared in Alex's doorway, shoulders square, hands behind her back.

Alex looked at her as if she was looking at a ghost. Instantly torn in two – where one half was agitated by her presence, and the other was inexplicably overwhelmed by it. Always two sets of feelings, two sets of memories… in keeping with the theme of that day. Only now, for the first time, Alex could make a distinction. At times the memories she had felt like they were fading, on their way out. Other times they felt like a remembrance, like when you're suddenly struck by an idea coming into your head.

She swallowed.

Her mother was dead. That felt like a remembrance. But how? The woman in front of her was clearly not an apparition. Alex slipped the photo back into her pocket and busied herself by getting her suitcase. She looked around the room, but didn't see it.

"Can I take a raincheck on dinner?" she asked, going down on her knees to check under her bed. Nothing. "Something came up and I have to-"

"What happened over there?"

Alex straightened, her hair falling every which way across her face from getting to her feet too quickly. She blew a puff of air up to clear her vision again and looked questioningly at Diane. Cutting straight to the point as always. Her mother didn't know any other way. But what was she supposed to say?

"Nothing happened. I'm fine." She went over to her closet, wrenching open the doors in the hope she had stowed her suitcase in there. But there was nothing. "Did I have my bag with me when I got in last night?"

Diane considered her a few seconds before answering, her voice sounding distant, like she too was preoccupied with thoughts running away from her. "I wasn't up when you got in."

Alex thought it strange but nodded and went down to check under the bed again, even though she knew what she'd find there. A big bunch of nothing. It was all too strange. If she came here from the airport, wouldn't her stuff be here too?

"I was pretty out of it," Diane went on. "Had to take something…" her voiced trailed off.

Alex stopped her search long enough to look at her.

"I lost my phone," she offered apologetically, not wanting to be the asshole who didn't take her mother's calls in a time of crisis.

"I was so relieved when I saw you this morning." But there was something off in her tone and Alex felt it shift the air around her. "But then…"

Diane crossed the threshold into Alex's room, her hands that were behind her back now swinging to her sides, and the backpack she was holding came into view. Without a word, and holding Alex's questioning gaze the entire time, Diane unclipped the ties and loosened the cord holding it closed. Then she upended the pack over Alex's bed, dropping an array of objects onto it.

Alex felt her eyes pulled to the contents – a large brown envelope filled to the point of bursting, a moleskin notebook, blue jeans, two t-shirts, underwear, and a black leather biker jacket. The frown on her forehead deepened. Something solid was trying to push through the fog in her head. A remembrance. Her stomach twisted into knots.

The empty backpack fell to the floor with a tired clatter and, ignoring everything strewn on the bed, Diane went for the fat brown envelope. Alex noticed then that it had been previously opened, and watched as Diane peeled back the flap, holding the yawning envelope out to her.

"I'm gonna ask you one last time, and don't think about lying to me," she said, her voice stern but trembling a little, "what happened over there?"

Alex blinked, as if that would get rid of the obvious illusion in front of her. But it didn't go anywhere. It was real. Fat wads of crisp, green bills were goading her from the envelope.

"Because this doesn't look like nothing," Diane said, waving the money at Alex. "This looks like a whole lot of something that would explain all of this." And she tossed it onto the bed, a few stacks of notes spilling out onto the pale lilac covers.

Her head hurt again. Worse than ever. And Alex took a step away from the bed, as if the things on it were about to come to life and attack her.

Diane wasn't struggling with the same sense of speechlessness though.

"I kept telling myself – and Nicky too, I told her – I'd know if something bad happened to you. As your mother, I would know. And I did know." Her voice squeaked out strained and full of emotion that made Alex look up at her. "I was hopped up on tranquilizers Dot gave me back at the diner when we first heard, and so thick in sleep I couldn't even lift my head from that pillow, but I felt it." A tight fist struck her right in the belly as punctuation to that statement. "Right here," Diane went on. "The thing that tied me to you…" She swallowed hard. "It snapped."

Alex shook her head as she tried to find words. They weren't coming. So she just stood there looking and feeling utterly helpless. To try and explain things to Diane, but also to explain them to herself. She had nothing.

"So imagine what it felt like getting out of bed and seeing you in here. The second I could move I came in here. Like I was being dragged. But then later…" Diane's eyes scanned Alex from top to bottom and then rested on her face again. "I looked at you but… I couldn't look at you. I had to get out of here. I didn't know what to think."

"I don't know what this is," Alex finally said, her voice coming out all hoarse, almost pleading.

But she instantly knew that it was a lie. Once again there were two parts of her, and one of those parts was starting to grip at the truth of what was lying on that bed in front of her.

"I keep telling you about getting mixed up with the wrong people."

"I'm not mixed up with-"

"What other reason will have me looking into your eyes and knowing – _feeling-"_ Diane drove a fist to her stomach same as before, "-that I'm looking at a stranger?"

"I swear I don't know what-"

"I didn't want to snoop through your things, but I had a feeling and I couldn't shake it. I saw the money. I was too scared to look at anything else. What are you on and who does that cash belong to? Do I need to be talking to the cops?"

What was she on? Alex did a double take. And cops?

"I'm not on anything!" She heard her voice get louder. "I've never seen that before. How can you-"

"I want you and all of this out of my house," Diane said, evenly and without question. The room fell silent, the air between them crackling with tension as the two Vause women stared each other down. "I love you but I don't want this," she waved her hand at the body of evidence on the bed. "And when you're ready to be honest I'll be ready to talk. But until then…"

Alex let out a heavy sigh and looked again at the various objects on her bed. Yet another mystery for her to get to the bottom of. Was there going to be an end to it all? And the money. It looked a good way over five thousand at least. Well, she had a way to get home that didn't involve borrowing from Diane's change jar. Now all she needed was

"Can I use your keys for my place?" she asked almost grudgingly, hating the fact she had to ask for anything under the circumstances, but Diane's spare key was the only way she'd get in. "They must've lost my luggage and my wallet, keys, all of it's in there."

The over-protective meddling mother in Diane backed down and she calmed, giving Alex a stiff nod as she folded her arms across her chest. She watched as Alex picked up the backpack from the floor and shoved everything back into it. Then she strode out of the room with the same determination she had when she'd arrived. Diane followed close behind.

"They're in my wallet," she said, noticing Alex rummaging through the mess of odds and ends strewn on the kitchen counter.

Relieved for the tip, Alex picked up the brown leather wallet and flipped it open. Then she froze. Every cell in her body seizing up. The little clear window on the one side of the wallet carried a photo. The same photo that was currently burning a hole in the pocket of her jeans.

Somewhere in the recesses of her mind Alex saw herself walk into her mother's house – a different house – clad in black, eyes red and swollen. Cried out. This memory was coming back, not fading… The stillness of the house was eerie but not because it was too quiet. Because it was empty. That permanent kind of empty that struck sorrow in your heart like the melancholy chords on a wailing violin. The wallet was on top of the chest of drawers in her mother's bedroom that still smelled like her even though she hadn't been in it in over a month. Alex got the letter that said the estate was being settled and she should clear out any belongings. There was nothing she wanted. Nothing worth having, because everything was a reminder of life weighed down too much and ended too soon. She took the photo and made the call to the executor that afternoon. The call that would wipe what was left of her mother off the face of the earth. Just like that. She'd never felt more alone in her life. Except for one other time, when-

"Let me help you," Diane's voice came up behind her, splitting into the cushion of pain in her head.

Alex sniffed and grabbed the key she was after in the first place, mumbling a quick _I'm fine_ as she pushed by Diane and went for the front door. But her feet were heavy. Because it was hard to walk away from the woman standing there. Because when she thought about her, it wasn't fading. And if Diane being dead was real, then how was she here? All those days she wished she had more time... Alex turned suddenly and flung herself into Diane's arms, wrapping her in a clumsy, tight embrace. To her surprise, the urgency of the hug was reciprocated, the woman holding onto her just as desperately. Alex burrowed into the crook of her neck, inhaling deeply, searching for hot cocoa and marshmallows. Of being loved to death.

But it wasn't there.

Alex straightened suddenly with another sniffle. The shock of confused reality making her feel unsettled and out of place and upside down. She swiped a rogue tear from her cheek and made a quick exit, not looking back and so not seeing Diane being less defensive about her own tears, letting them roll freely as the door closed on the woman who didn't feel like her daughter at all.

 **/**

 _ **2013, November**_

 **/**

" _I'm working."_

 _Alex looks over to see a blonde woman in the armchair opposite the one she was about to sit in, laptop open, feet stretched out in front of the roaring logs. And even though she has clearly just spoken to Alex, her eyes are glued to her computer screen, fingers tapping away as if in a race against time._

" _Good for you," Alex says, and sits down, dismissing the woman with a shake of the head._

 _She deposits her pile of new books on the leather ottoman beside her and picks the one at the top before settling back into the cozy chair. But she has barely opened the cover when the woman speaks again._

" _You can't sit here."_

 _Alex rolls her eyes and then lowers her book slowly so she can just about look over it. The woman is looking at her now. Her face totally unreadable, her eyes the kind of blue that makes your heart stop._

" _I'm working," she repeats her earlier statement._

 _Alex's eyebrows shoot up. "Oh you mean you want me to move?"_

" _To leave, yes," the woman says with a curt nod and goes back to her screen with her tap, tap, tapping, happy to be understood._

 _Alex tightens her jaw and watches the stranger in front of her, daggers flying right into the middle of her perfect forehead. But she might as well not exist for all their effectiveness. Of course she can't just go out and have a peaceful afternoon. Of course there will be something to mess it up. But not today. It's her first day out and she is determined to relax in front of this fire and read a good book. The woman hasn't said anything else or even looked up again, so Alex settles back into the armchair and opens her book._

" _He sacrifices his life to save the rest of the town."_

 _Alex snaps the book shut and drops it in her lap, glaring at the woman._

" _What is your problem?"_

" _You," she says too easily, not wavering under the look she's getting from Alex._

" _All I want is to sit here and read my book in peace."_

" _I'm working."_

" _Yeah, I heard," Alex replies in a huff, tossing the now ruined novel aside and taking up the next one on her pile. "There's enough peace and quiet for the both of us, so why don't you just focus on whatever you're doing over there, and I'll be over here trying not to breathe too loud."_

" _Loudly."_

" _Bite me."_

" _Her love interest ends up being the owner of the company and she betrays him in the end."_

" _Are you kidding me? What are you, five?" Alex fumes. She tosses the second book aside and it nearly goes skidding off the ottoman._

 _The woman's eyes move from Alex's raging face to the remainder of the pile beside her. Going through the books in list style with a cool voice, the woman says:_

" _Priest is the killer, everyone dies, it's not an alien just a deformed human, everyone but the cleaning lady dies but the theme is ultimately hopeful, which redeems the author's parochial take on culture and identity in the 21_ _st_ _century ."_

" _Unbelievable." Alex gives a caustic chuckle as she swipes those titles aside, leaving the last book._

 _To think, she thought she was going to walk in here and get lost in a good book. Instead she finds herself having to deal with this. She should be angry about it, but for some reason she's mildly entertained. The woman interests her. And apparently shares her taste in books. She puts her hand on the final novel, all the while holding the unmoving gaze of the woman in front of her. She picks it up, raising a challenging brow. For a second it looks like the woman is struggling with something, but she stays silent._

" _All out of being a dick to a total stranger?" Alex asks._

" _I was just thinking about how it felt the first time I read that one." She drops her eyes back to her screen and continues typing. "Everyone should get to have that."_

" _Gee, thanks," Alex mumbles, sinking back into the armchair. But she can't deny the gesture doesn't get to her._

 _And now that she has the permission to do what she's been wanting to, Alex finds herself not wanting to. Now all she can think about is the woman in front of her. Equal parts infuriating and intriguing. Alex dares a glance over the top of her book, careful in her movements even though she knows she doesn't have to be. The woman is totally consumed by the work she's doing. Plain but unquestioningly beautiful, works remotely, has read everything… Alex finds herself wanting to know more, and the plans she has for the afternoon suddenly takes an unexpected turn._

 **/**

 **Thursday, November 19** **th** **, 2009**

 **/**

The key was a tarnished bronze. Alex sat in the back of the cab, flipping it over and over between her fingers. She'd given the driver the address that felt like it was being forgotten. Her reasoning being that so far all of those memories were tied to this place and the people in it. And at first the idea carried implications of insanity – that she was losing her mind – but the more she lived this day, the more she felt that there was something else to it. Something she was missing. The t-shirt was her first solid lead to finding out what that was. Her heart grew heavy with the admission that she had no idea where to even begin where that was concerned. But keeping herself from getting too far ahead, Alex comforted her aching head with thoughts of a hot shower and her own clean clothes. More than once though, those thoughts drifted to the backpack on the seat beside her, and the cryptic contents it held. But she would jerk them back, refocusing on the present.

One thing at a time.

They pulled up to an old, decommissioned fire house. Looking at the bakery that now took up the ground floor, Alex was sure the driver had made some mistake. But then she checked the second level of the building and felt a sense of familiarity about the large windows that ran the length of it. She paid and got out, almost going through the bakery but then for some reason, knowing that she should walk around the side of the building.

Black wrought iron stairs went all the way up to a wide, heavy metal-cast sliding door. The key fit the hanging lock and Alex twisted it.

Home was an open studio-style space – the original bare brick walls of the fire house adorned with large photographic prints in black and white. On her left, the side she had looked up at from the street, four huge windows ran almost the entire way from floor to ceiling, with bamboo Venetian blinds hinting at the dying sun just outside. If opened, Alex saw that the light would wash directly into the living room. Four sofas with big pillows and deep seats were arranged around a breathtaking antique apothecary, its dark wood gleaming despite the lack of light. It all sat atop a plush earth-colored rug that broke the otherwise constant gray of the concrete floors. A gigantic ornate gilded mirror caught her eye and Alex looked at herself – lost in all that space, where not one thing was familiar to her. The mirror hung above a fireplace, and on the opposite end of the room the entire wall was shelving that housed hundreds of books. A record player took up an entire corner, with what looked like thousands of records in boxed shelves around it. And just to the right of that

"No way," Alex muttered to herself, walking over to the fireman's pole going through the floor in her living room.

She was faintly aware of the smell of freshly baked goodness when walking in, but dismissed it as consequence of being on top of a bakery. Now though, peering down the gaping hole in the floor and seeing the tops of customers' heads in the store below, Alex realized she had an open line to baked goods Mecca.

"Coolest thing ever," she nodded with approval, and then turned back to continue her investigation.

She dropped the backpack, practically forgotten, onto one of the sofas and moved through the rest of the place in quiet curiosity, opening the kitchen cupboards and drawers as she passed through. The double doors of the metallic refrigerator revealed a significant lack of nutrition. Grocery shopping was added to a mental list as Alex continued through to the bedroom.

In contrast to the clean, modern feel of the rest of the apartment, the bedroom emitted a cozy warmth with its distinct bohemian feel. Rich oranges and deep reds, forest greens and ocean blues, all came together to create the impression of a zen sanctuary. A dark wood four-poster bed stood on a raised platform in the center of the room. Sheer shawls and silken scarves of fall colors draped over the posts, creating a kind of harem effect. Alex nodded approvingly and then started rifling through the closets, finding herself more than satisfied with the selection. Having been stuck with a choice of clothing limited to one option for the past three years, she felt like stripping down naked and wearing every single item in those closets all at the same time.

A heavy oak chest of drawers stood against the wall next to the bedroom door. She'd missed it coming in and being distracted by the array of color and clothes. Now Alex eased open the top drawer. Her eyebrows shot up instantly, and a wry smile tilted the corners of her lips as she looked down on an extensive collection of toys. From bondings and blindfolds, to strap-ons and whips, it was all there.

"Tied spot for coolest thing ever," Alex mumbled with a wry smirk.

The sound of the front door sliding open caught her attention and Alex quickly snapped the drawer shut.

"Before you say anything, I'm sorry," Nicky said as Alex appeared in the kitchen. She held up her hands in surrender when all she got in response was a tight-lipped scowl. "I'm also not sorry," Nicky continued, "because she deserves to know what's going on with you. She's as worried as I am."

Alex considered her for a moment. She understood where Nicky was coming from, but also didn't want the details of her life being broadcast to Diane every step of the way. Especially now that she was in this limbo, trying to figure things out.

"I accept your apology," she muttered, and added, "but don't make a habit of reporting my every move."

"Hey, I'm just glad you're not dead," Nicky said with a smile.

Alex laughed softly, relaxing a little. "Yeah, me too." Then a slight frown creased her brow. "What are you doing here?"

"Checking on you. Don't be mad." Nicky held up her hands again to ward off any potential reprimands. "But you weren't exactly A-okay when you stormed out on me. I was-"

"Worried, yeah, I know."

"Cut me some slack, would you? You didn't see what I saw. And then you practically take out the whole shop when you leave- Hey, what did girl Chapman have to say about that? Got anything to drink?" Nicky moved over to the refrigerator and opened up both doors at their widest.

"Who?"

"A-ha! Lone beer." She snatched up the only bottle of beer and twisted the cap, kicking the doors closed with her heel as she turned back to Alex. "The college girl you administered third degree coffee burns to – Chapman." Nicky took a sip of the ice cold lager and gave a sigh of pleasure.

"You know her?" Alex asked, trying to bring her back to the conversation. Nicky always talked like this – several things at once – and usually it wasn't hard keeping up, but today it grated her.

"Not really. Her brother checked you out in my office today. Talk about opposites," Nicky chuckled and took another swig of her beer. Alex waited patiently. "Sister's a big deal science nerd at a big deal university, and he gets picked up for possession fresh out of high school. Working out his probation with me. She's the one who fixed it for him. Swooping in to save the day, with her money and her rep. And her money. All to keep Momma Chapman from finding out. Go figure." She shook her head at the unfairness of it all and downed the last of her drink.

Chapman. The cogs in Alex's brain whirred to the point of smoking. Foggy fingers grasping at misty shapes in the hope of landing on something solid.

"She recognized my t-shirt," Alex said then, her voice sounding thoughtful, like she was halfway lost in her head and halfway out of it.

"Yeah, and…?" Nicky signaled with her hand for Alex to continue.

The brunette didn't even realize she was taking that long of a pause. She shook her head to straighten her thoughts.

"It's apparently one of a limited run. One of those online sales." Talking about it out loud felt good. It felt like she was getting traction and it energized her. "There has to be a way for me to track the sales, right? I'm thinking, if I can-"

"Find out who it belongs to, you can find out what the hell happened?"

"Yes. Except I don't have a clue how to do that. Or who to ask."

"Remember Bones?" Nicky asked. Alex shook her head no, but listened intently. "He used to hang with the old group, when I was still wayward and all that. Big on credit card fraud. Always had the nicest kicks."

"Do you think you could ask him to help?" Alex asked, her excitement sneaking through. "I'll pay. Anything. All I need is a name and a-"

"He's dead."

"What? Then what are you telling me about him for?" Alex threw up her arms in exasperation and walked through to the living room where she flopped into one of the sofas. All that short-lived energy gone.

Nicky followed. "I wasn't so much telling you as I was thinking out loud," she said defensively, sitting in one of the armchairs and promptly resting her feet on the apothecary in front of her. "I was getting to the part where I tell you I used to know someone who could've helped, but don't have that kind of network anymore."

"You're a pain in the ass, you know that? Feet." Alex shot her a glaring look.

Nicky pulled back her feet in a huff, like a child being disciplined by a teacher, and straightened in her chair.

"I'll ask around, okay? We'll figure it out."

"This is the first real thing I have that can give me some answers, Nick," Alex said then, her tone utterly defeated.

Nicky nodded sympathetically. "I know. And we'll-"

Her words cut off at the sound of the front door scraping open. They first looked at each other in puzzlement, then craned their necks to see who it could be.

A slender woman, with brown hair and brown eyes came into view. Her face broke into the widest grin the second she spotted Alex and, without even closing the door behind her, she rushed over. Arms open and a strange squealing sound coming from her mouth, like she was trying to contain intense elation. Alex realized she was the target of it, and stood up just in time to be smothered in a tight embrace. Nicky cringed, and when she saw Alex looking at her through a flurry of brown hair, mouthed the word 'sorry' with a shrug.

"I'm so glad you're okay," the woman said, finally easing up on her hold. "You're okay, right?" Her hands were all over, feeling Alex's face, head, arms.

Alex ducked out of the unwanted inspection with as much grace as she could. There was a name, it was sitting at the tip of her tongue, it belonged to the face in front of her…

"What is it?" the woman asked off Alex's perplexed expression. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Nothing," Alex said with a shake of her head. "I'm just happy to see you."

She suddenly recognized the face. Knew the name. And why she was there. So Alex didn't fight it when Sylvie pulled her in for a passionate welcome home kiss that made her head spin.


	13. Part 2: Chapter 3

Hi everyone! Sorry for missing my update last week. My schedule was killing me and I had to be a responsible student for a change. I'm glad to finally be posting this chapter though, because it's a big one in terms of story. I hope you enjoy it:)

As always, endless thanks to everyone who read and reviewed the last chapter. I'm constantly blown away by the reception this strange little story is getting. You're beautiful and awesome and make writing this so much more fun. Special thanks to BL-is-love, who helps my brain figure things out. For this chapter, especially. And the lovely Vausemaniac, for sharing this crazy fic on her blog. If you haven't already, please check it out. Vauseman goodness that will stop your shipper hearts:)

* * *

 **The Equation Part 2:**

 **The Woman from the Other Side**

 **Chapter 3**

 **/**

 **Friday, November 20** **th** **, 2009**

 **/**

Alex woke with a start, feeling that kind of confused displacement that happens when you wake from a dream you can't remember even though you just dreamed it. She blinked the sleep from her eyes and her bedroom swam into a hazy focus. Her bedroom? Alex felt for her glasses on the bedside table and fumbled them onto her face. It wasn't her room. She looked down at the deep red covers sprinkled with a stardust design. This wasn't her bed. Something soft and unseen brushed lightly against her bare leg and Alex noticed for the first time that she wasn't alone. A bubble of panic rose in her throat, trapping the scream she first intended, making it come out in some kind of garbled groan as she stumbled from the bed, not taking her eyes off the sleeping brunette stranger.

A sudden draft brought her attention to her absolute nakedness and Alex made a desperate swipe for one of the shawls draped over the end of the bed, clutching it around her shoulders. Forget that the thing was almost entirely sheer and barely reached below her waist. It was the intention of rescued modesty that helped ease the trembling in her limbs. Where the hell was she, and who the hell was in that bed? Alex's eyes swept around the room almost manically before landing on a photo collage against the wall above a mahogany dresser.

She walked over to it, her face a picture of studious curiosity. Candid shots, over twenty of them, stuck every which way. Memories frozen in time. Something clicked in her head. A shift. She had a thing for candids. Preferred them over stiff-looking poses. It's what drew her to street photography in the first place. Capturing the essence of people when most of the time they had no idea it was even happening. There was Nicky at Red's. Karaoke night. There was her mother reading. The Common. It was one of Alex's favorite spots for people-watching. And there was one of Syl… Alex turned to the sleeping figure in the bed. Her bed. Her girlfriend.

Everything settled back into place, and she noticed the trembling had stopped. The feeling of displacement was gone. But yet…

She stepped closer, watching Sylvie with a quiet consideration. The dream she had, the one she couldn't think of just then, it still lingered somewhere inside her. The thing she was dreaming of. No, not the thing. Person. It was a memory that steadied itself right in the middle of her chest. Someone she couldn't remember but knew was in there. Somewhere. It got her thinking about her plans to get to the bottom of this… this dual reality she was experiencing. That was the best way to describe it – feeling like she was actually two people. The t-shirt, the backpack, the mysterious cell phone. All apparently hers, but also not.

Her plans to figure everything out were put on hold though, when Syl showed up. And Alex couldn't deny that she was happy for the disruption. Relieved that no further inquiries were made about her health or state of mind, or what happened or didn't happen… She was tired of thinking about it, talking in circles about it, being made to feel like she was losing her mind. Mentally exhausted and emotionally spent, she had clung to the distraction of Sylvie, losing herself in the physical act of sex for the sake of it. At least then there were no questions she couldn't answer, and a release that stilled her racing mind long enough to bring sleep and relief from the constant confusion. But even in sleep, there was no escaping the thing hanging over her. Reminding her that she had so much work to do before her peace could be real.

Her internal processing was interrupted when Sylvie began to stir. Alex held her breath as she watched the sleepy eyelids flutter open and, once focused on Alex, a slow smile crept onto Sylvie's lips. Alex knew that smile well. What it meant, what it wanted…

"What are you doing?" Sylvie's voice was weighted with sleep as she pushed up on one elbow, her disheveled hair contrasting against her bare skin where it fell.

Alex had to steel herself against the sudden barrage of images in her mind – that skin against her hot mouth, the feeling of being so caught up in something outside herself there was no time to consider the chaos inside. But no. No more distractions. She was tired of feeling like she was wedged between two worlds. She had to get to the bottom of whatever this was.

"Come back to bed." Sylvie shifted and the covers slipped just enough to reveal what she was inviting Alex back to bed for.

It was tempting. But Alex fought the feeling and shook her head. "Can't." She cleared her throat to try and find the voice that wouldn't betray her struggle. "Too much to do."

Surprisingly, Sylvie accepted the rejection with more grace than Alex expected she would.

"Ugh, I guess you're right," she said, falling back onto the pillows. "I start a night shift tomorrow, and April's been riding me like a bat out of hell, so the party's going to have to be tonight." She reached for her cell phone on her bedside table and started tapping away at it.

"Party?" No. No no no. Still holding the meaningless shawl, Alex moved to sit at the foot of the bed. "I'm not up for a party." But Sylvie wasn't listening. "Come on, Syl, I mean it."

Sylvie held up her index finger in a sign for Alex to hold that thought while her other hand carried on typing.

"Done," she said, finally looking up, a huge grin on her face. "Text chain in motion. Everyone's coming over at 7 tonight for your official welcome home party." She took Alex's hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "Fix that face. It'll be fun, I promise. I'll get a caterer, there'll be music, drinks…"

Alex made no further argument. She knew it was useless. There would be a party whether she wanted it or not. Which left her with only a few hours before her time wasn't hers again. When she would have to grin and bear the burden of socializing with people who had no idea she was practically coming apart at the seams. Even Sylvie. No idea what she was dealing with. And Alex wanted to keep it that way. Having Nicky was enough. She didn't want to rehash everything – and sound like a crazy person – to anyone else.

"I need a shower," she said then, leaving the shawl as she padded to the bathroom.

Shower and then what? She still had no idea where to find information on the online purchases connected to the t-shirt. Google, maybe. Although gaining access to consumer details would probably entail something a little less cheap and a lot less legal.

These were the thoughts spiraling in her head when she stepped into the piping hot shower, steam almost instantly starting to billow up around her. Alex bowed her head to give the streaming massage access to her stiff neck, the water pounding her with perfect pressure, easing out the tension that had settled there.

 _You're going to be fine_

Every muscle tensed up again. With the steady spattering of droplets on her head and neck, Alex couldn't be sure whether she'd heard it, but for a second it sounded as if there was someone in there with her. Someone close. Saying… that she was going to be fine? She lifted her head and held it just outside the onslaught of water, listening carefully. She was alone. There was no-one in there with her. She shook her head, dismissing it as a lingering sensation of her dream, but adjusted the faucet anyway, slowing it down to soften the drumming in her ears. And now except for the streaming water splattering on the tiles, there was no other sound. Deciding it must have been her imagination after all, Alex took the shampoo from the holder to her right and stepped back into the rain of droplets.

 _I'll be right behind you_

She whipped around, eyes searching the steamed-up shower for the owner of that voice. The voice she instantly recognized, but had never heard before. As if on cue, a stabbing ache split her head and stars swam in front of her eyes. Alex swallowed hard and blinked the water from her lashes to clear her vision that had suddenly blurred. But it wasn't because of the water. She knew that. Just like she knew that voice wasn't her imagination. Mind reeling, heart pounding, she practically jumped out of her skin when the door to the shower swung open and Sylvie slipped inside.

"Expecting someone else?" she said with a wry grin, and took the shampoo from Alex, guiding her to turn around.

Alex left her body to go where Sylvie told it to, saying nothing, and using everything she had to gather herself. To reel in the thoughts that had gone hurtling off to who knew where, even out her breathing and slow her heart back down. The gentle massage that started on her head helped with that. There was something about having someone's fingers in her hair that rendered Alex completely limp. She welcomed it. Felt that tense knot in her belly start to unravel.

Hearing voices. That was new. And a sure sign that she was losing her mind.

For now though, the freak-out could wait until after. Moving from one moment to the next was how she was going to get through this. And right now, this moment was the one that mattered.

"Who's Piper?"

And just like that, any plans Alex had for putting off her meltdown were instantly stopped in their tracks. That knot in her stomach pulled tight once again.

"Who?" Alex asked, trying to sound nonchalant, but why was her body reacting so strongly to that name?

Sylvie chuckled softly. "You mumbled it in your sleep last night." Then she tugged gently back on Alex's hair to bring her ear in line with her mouth, and said: "You better not be cheating on me, Vause."

Alex turned to face her then, schooling her features into something resembling playful confusion despite the fact that the wheels in her head were coming off their axels.

"Who me? Never," she said, and pulled Sylvie in to kiss her. Deeply. Enough to make her forget, while Alex tried desperately to remember.

 **/**

 _ **2013, December**_

 **/**

 _The first snow of the season has Boston Common dusted in an ethereal glow that even the biting cold can't ruin. Trees that have been bare for weeks now shimmer with branches dressed in white powder and moonlight, creating a magical path for anyone inclined to enjoy the brisk night out on its winding lanes. And tonight there are quite a few people milling about._

 _Alex hugs her coat a little closer, not wanting to show just how useless the old thing is in these temperatures. She converts Piper's heavy tweed overcoat into hours – years – she would have had to work laundry at Litchfield in order to afford it. That familiar tightness grips her chest then, but Alex decides to push all thoughts of that life out of her mind. She doesn't want to think about that now. Not with Piper._

 _A small group, talking and laughing, comes toward them along the foot path, and Alex and Piper move aside as one unit for them to pass. Alex hears their laughter fading behind them and glances over at the stoically silent Piper, hands buried in her pockets, head down, eyes studying the ground beneath her feet._

" _I know you don't usually say much, but you're pretty quiet tonight," Alex says._

 _Piper shrugs but doesn't respond._

" _Hey," Alex dares a light touch to her arm so she can stop walking. "What's up?"_

 _At first Piper looks like she's considering whether to say anything at all. She looks around and then finally settles her thoughtful gaze on Alex._

" _I was outlining my lecture last night, and I thought about the other day, when the Red Line got stalled and you thought it would be a good idea to walk the rest of the way to the museum."_

 _Alex laughs lightly at the memory of that particular disaster. It was one of the better days she's had since getting out. Or ever, in fact._

" _I see the world in numbers," Piper continues, "a collection of variables and constants. Ever since I can remember, I'm happiest in my personal math bubble. My head always full of the next problem to solve, or work to get to…"_

" _I think it's cool. I've never known a real live genius before," Alex says with a chuckle. But she notices Piper's serious expression hasn't lightened. "What is it? Work getting you down?"_

 _Piper shakes her head. "I love my work."_

" _So then what?"_

 _Piper fixes her eyes on Alex, and it strikes her how even at night the specific shade of green can burn so alive behind those secretary glasses. "So… last night I thought about the other day, when the Red Line got stalled."_

 _Alex is trying to find her feet in the seemingly disconnected statements she's making.. "Piper, I'm not sure I-"_

" _I've made my life about being an academic. And that was always enough for me. I was happy. But the other day, when we were running to get out of the rain and you grabbed my hand to pull me into that pizza place… I was happier."_

 _Alex can't help the smile on her face or the warmth that spread out from her chest, making even the tips of her fingers tingle. But there's a part of her holding back. Always that part that's telling her she has no business having all of these feelings in such a short time, especially when her life was a virtual mess. And yet, the thought that she could be a reason for this woman's happiness fills her up like nothing else._

" _That's a good thing, right? I mean, we had fun. So why don't you look too happy about it?"_

" _Because I like you," Piper responded simply. "And at first I thought you liked me too. But according to my calculations, you should have kissed me two days ago. You didn't. And now I wonder whether your interest is real, or maybe I'm doing this wrong, or... I'm not used to this whole dating th-"_

 _Piper is cut off by a flood of lights springing up all around them in the midst of loud cheers from people everywhere._

 _They both look around, eyes darting from tree to tree, mouths open in awe as the once dark and ghostly Common is suddenly transformed into a fairy light wonderland. White, blue, green, red – little sprinkles of light draped through every branch as far as they can see, and topped off by the giant Christmas tree ablaze at the center of it all. The tree-lighting ceremony was the reason they had come, but somehow had been entirely forgotten._

 _Piper turns her focus from the lights in the trees to the way they're dancing on Alex's face, reflecting on the clear lenses of her glasses. She's not surprised that they forgot. Lately she's been finding it easy to forget everything when she's with Alex. Even now, with all those people milling about and reveling in the official start of the season… It's like they're far off in the distance somewhere, and all that's here and all that matters is the person standing beside her. She unsheathes her hand from her own pocket and slips it into Alex's, interlacing their fingers in the warmth there._

 _The sudden touch calls Alex's attention and she turns to look at Piper, her face an open display of the flood of affection she's feeling._

" _You're not doing it wrong," Alex says in a low voice, gently squeezing the hand inside hers. "You're perfect."_

 _And when she leans in, Piper tilts her chin so their mouths meet. A luscious warmth in the bitter cold, as lips part and searching tongues find each other. In the dark, and the lights, and the sounds of people who don't matter._

 **/**

 **Friday, November 20** **th** **, 2009**

 **/**

There were too many people. The music too loud. Not enough alcohol to make it go away.

Alex moved around from pillar to post, trying to be present at the party thrown especially for her, but wanting more than anything to just disappear, hoping that each person who came up to tell her how happy they were that she was alive would be the last person to do so. It never was, and Alex found herself being sucked into conversations that didn't interest her, with people she had a hard time recognizing. Sylvie hanging on her arm all evening didn't help her irritation. It was like the more she wanted space, the more the woman refused it. And being surrounded by so many people talking and laughing and having fun, when all she felt was blocked off to it, just made it worse. Alex was beginning to feel more and more that she was someplace she didn't belong. And her head was killing her. Because every now and again, under the constant hum of music and voices there would be that one voice – the one from the shower – saying things. Bits of phrases. Out of nowhere. A feeling. Of being torn in two, usually with a wave of nausea that made her head swim.

 _I'll be right behind you_

"You know, it's not polite to hide when you're the guest of honor," Nicky said with a laugh as she came up to Alex in the dark shadows of the hallway.

"Yeah well," was the length of Alex's response. She couldn't deny any of it.

"I tried to tell her you wouldn't be into this. But you know Syl."

Alex grabbed Nicky's beer just as she lifted it for another sip, and took a swig from it herself. "Where is she, anyway?" she asked, wondering for the first time since taking to the shadows down the hall, how she'd managed to go undetected by the rabid Sylvie for that long.

"Ice," Nicky replied, taking back her drink. "She wanted to send Joel but he's too out of it."

Alex nodded thoughtfully, feeling relief at the news of Sylvie's absence, and realizing for the first time how weighed down she felt just being around her. That wasn't supposed to be how things worked, was it?

"I take it by the face you're wearing that it didn't go so great today," Nicky said, sounding sympathetic.

But it wasn't something Alex wanted. Sympathy wasn't going to help her.

Nicky knew what her friend's silence meant. "And this?" she asked, waving her beer at the small crowd gathered in Alex's living room. "Being around everyone isn't helping you remember?"

A bitter laugh escaped her. If anything, being there with all those people was making her feel even worse.

"I don't know how I'm going to do this, Nick. There was nothing in the backpack that could explain anything. The money, clothes, some old music… And I'm no closer to the owner of that stupid shirt."

Nicky hesitated for a second, but then said the thing she knew probably wouldn't go over well. "I still think you should see a doctor." Alex shook her head. "Just hear me out, okay?"

"No. It's not like that."

"How the hell can you know?" Nicky's cool demeanor slipped just a little. It was hard for her to see Alex like that, and even harder to try and help but be shot down all the way because of her stubbornness.

"Because I just know," Alex snapped at her.

"Well that's fucking great then. What isn't great, I'll tell you, is seeing you like this. Acting so… out of it all the time. Listening to the crazy shit you're saying…?"

And that was the final straw for Alex. "Oh, I'm sorry. I had no idea how hard this is _for you_. Please, forgive me for the inconvenience of my problems."

"Save the fucking drama, would you? You know that's not what I meant. I just-"

"I feel like a stranger in my own house," Alex said with a dreadfully defeated laugh. "All those people in there… my friends?… I don't know any of them." She noticed Nicky's expression change and quickly added, "I mean, of course I know them, I just... I feel like my memories of everything and everyone around me are slipping away." Alex finished the rest of Nicky's beer to help send the lump in her throat back down, trying to keep the sting in her eyes from turning into a full on cry fest.

The pressure cooker with all her frustration and confusion was about to explode. She could feel it bubbling under more furiously than ever.

"What about me?" Nicky's voice was soft when she asked it, her eyes not leaving Alex's for a second.

Alex gave a tired shrug, her eyes welling up for real this time. "Sometimes everything makes sense, Nick. And sometimes..." She sighed heavily.

"But I'm right here in front of you," Nicky said, working hard to keep the hurt out of her voice. "You're talking to me. You know me," she said desperately. Because it hadn't occurred to her until just then that whatever was happening to Alex's brain to make her forget, would include her too.

Alex looked at Nicky without saying anything. It was happening again… that moment when things would switch around. When the world and the people in it felt like strangers for a few minutes at a time, before everything would go back the other way around. Those phases were becoming more frequent as the day wore on. The headaches worse. Somewhere in the back of her head Alex understood that these were people she was supposed to know, supposed to belong with. But during the switch – like when she had woken up that morning – she had an overwhelming feeling that wasn't the truth. That she belonged somewhere else. With someone else. She couldn't tell Nicky all of that, could she? How would she even begin to explain that feeling?

"Sylvie and I had sex last night."

Nicky was thrown by the sudden turn in conversation. "Uh, thanks for sharing. I guess."

"She's my girlfriend and so that's what we did." Nicky just stared at her, not sure how to what to say. "But this morning…" Alex continued, her voice taking on an uneasy tone, "…it was different. She didn't feel like my girlfriend. And I fucked her anyway," Alex choked on the words. "I felt dirty and sick, but I did it. Because it's the only way to get a fucking break from the raging mess in my head." She quickly brushed at the rogue tears that got away from her resolve to keep them in place.

"Jesus." It was all Nicky could find to say in response to that.

And although it didn't feel as if she was making any outright judgments, Alex knew what Nicky was thinking – that she was crazy – and was suddenly relieved she didn't say anything about the voices.

Voice. It was only ever just the one voice.

 _You're going to be fine_

"Look," Nicky said, "it's killing me to see you like this. And this shit about your life disappearing? It sounds like maybe you got a fucked up case of PTSD from the attack."

"Don't shrink me," Alex said, suddenly getting her back up at the counselor tone Nicky had adopted.

"Just listen to what I-"

"No."

"Don't you think it makes sense? That your mind is trying to protect itself from trauma by negating the life that led you to that attack in the first place?"

Yes. It made a lot of sense to Alex. But it didn't explain why she'd have memories of a different life. Was that her mind too? Giving her someone else to be so she'd have a replacement for the memories it was repressing? What about the voice in her head? And the name she was saying in her sleep?

That head-splitting pain reared up again, and the muscles in her neck and shoulders bunched up in response to it.

"I have to get out of here." Alex said then, thrusting the empty beer bottle into Nicky's hands. "I can't fucking breathe."

 _ **/**_

 _ **2013, December**_

 _ **/**_

 _Somewhere in the back of her mind Alex is aware of the time ticking away, calling the end of her break ever nearer. But it's too far back for her to care, and she's determined to keep it that way. She'd much rather sit here, watching Piper talk about work. Watch, instead of listen. Because Alex doesn't understand a single word she's saying. And after a lifetime of never having a care in the world about Mathematics, Alex is suddenly grateful for its existence. Because of the way Piper's eyes light up when she's talking about it. How she dips her head and laughs at a joke only she understands. The dimple that kisses her cheek when that happens. Alex wishes she could put her lips just there…_

" _And that concludes my efforts to bore you half to death," Piper says with a self-conscious smile. She's noticed Alex's faraway expression, and feels guilty for running off about her work yet again._

 _Alex lifts her head from where it was resting in her hand while she was sitting in quiet contemplation of the woman beside her. Now under her studious gaze, Alex feels a slight flush creep onto her cheeks._

" _Hardly. I think it's great you have this thing that you're so passionate about. So sure of. I wish I had that. Then I wouldn't be stuck here making ten bucks an hour," she ends with a bitter laugh. It was meant to be funny, but the truth of it makes it less so._

 _She isn't ungrateful. Knows that Nicky had to pull serious strings to get her the gig. But all her time at Litchfield spent thinking about what the rest of her life would look like, working an ad hoc bar at every faculty mixer or frat social didn't factor. Who would want to immerse themselves in a world that had no use for them beyond the one that required a fake smile and cheap black waistcoat that chafed their neck every time they moved? But finding work in her position is near impossible on a good day. Because the last time Alex used her marketable skills, it landed her in prison. So when Nicky came to her with the contact, how was she supposed to say no? The woman had already given one of her apartments and several cash loans to help get Alex on her feet. Pride had no place in this situation._

 _Having Piper around on some of those gigs made it easier. And tonight's mixer is in the events room that also had a private lounge hidden behind heavy red drapes. Low light, Italian leather couches, the hand-carved cherry wood bar, and the two of them seated at it. Alone. Concealed from the broken social scene of the main room._

" _It can't be that bad," Piper offers in an attempt to lift the sudden dip in Alex's mood._

" _Let's see, uh, I have to answer to a fucking twelve-year-old, I'm forced to smile politely at people who can't look at me when they talk – who don't even see me, or give any kind of fuck beyond my ability to get their drink to them. Not that bad? It's fucking horrible." Piper is looking at her with wide eyes, clearly taken aback by her sudden venting. "Shit," Alex says then. "Okay, rant over. Sorry." She drops her gaze to the discarded waistcoat on the bar in front of her and starts fidgeting with the frayed cotton on one of its seams._

" _I see you." The sincerity in Piper's voice cuts through the mess in Alex's head and she looks up at her. "I mean, I feel bad you're having a hard time but also… I like that you're stuck here. With me."_

 _Alex smiles softly. "Selfish asshole."_

" _I know, sorry. But also, I'm not sorry." Piper slides off her bar stool and, clutching the front of Alex's shirt, pulls her in to a kiss._

 _Alex wraps her arms around Piper's waist and pulls her closer, kissing her deeper. Her head spins._

 **/**

 **Friday, November 20** **th** **, 2009**

 **/**

The cold was nothing now that she had her own protection against it, far better than the old lady sweater of her mother's. Alex pulled her beanie lower over her ears and buried her hands in her overcoat. Her face stung, but she welcomed it. She'd welcome any feeling that pulled her out of her head. So she focused on it, the hundreds of tiny pin pricks on her bare cheeks, the cloud that came out of her mouth whenever she exhaled, the sound of her boots on the wet sidewalk, cars going by, people, voices… Real voices, ones that other people could hear too. She walked without stopping and without having anywhere in particular to go. Not thinking about anything in particular and everything all at once.

After a long while the smell of pizza broke into her jumbled thoughts, making her stomach awaken with a growl. Alex slowed her pace and came up to the window of Sal's, the late-night pizzeria that usually attracted crowds over the weekend. That night it was strangely deserted though, with only two tables taken up, one of which had only one patron- Alex did a double take at the sight of the woman sitting there with her nose in a book. The woman from the book store. And before she could make sense of the tingling that flared up on the back of her neck at that moment, her feet were carrying her inside, as if drawn by a force entirely out of her control.

"Hey."

After a few seconds of confusion, the woman's face brightened with a smile of recognition and she lowered her book.

"You're not armed, are you? Because I actually like this one," she said leaning back in her chair, eyeing Alex suspiciously.

Alex noticed that layered over her white long sleeves, the woman was wearing an MIT shirt just like the one that got ruined when Alex had bumped into her. She laughed softly, holding up her hands. "I come in peace," she said.

"Good." The woman pulled a pen out of her hair, using it to save her space before placing it on the table in front of her.

Her golden hair whispered out of the casual knot the writing implement was anchoring, and fell to brush her shoulders lightly. She grinned up at Alex totally oblivious to the seductive power of that simple move. Instead, she read Alex's rapt gaze as something entirely different.

"Don't judge me," she said, pushing the book away from her. "Everyone's already read it, and I hate feeling like I'm missing out. So are you Team Peeta or Team Gale?"

A soft frown furrowed Alex's brow as she looked from the woman to the book on the table. She'd recognized the title, but wasn't in any hurry to add it to her list of books to get to.

"I haven't read it," she said, finding herself simultaneously unsettled and strongly drawn to the stranger. Something about the unburdened tenor in her voice calmed the unrest in Alex.

"So if you're not here to crash into unsuspecting customers, or inconspicuously digest popular fiction in a dark corner where no-one can judge you..." The dimple on her cheek deepened and Alex had to physically drag her eyes from it.

"I was just walking. I don't even know why I came in here." She didn't sound very convincing, and the woman didn't look very convinced. The knowing smile that teased onto her lips gave that away. Alex hoped she was doing a better job of cloaking her thoughts.

"Who goes for late-night walks in this weather?"

People on the verge of losing their sanity, that's who. Alex shrugged, and said, "Just needed to clear my head, I guess."

"At this hour? There are only two things that would call for that."

Alex waited for her to mention those two things, but all the woman did was look at her, studying her face closely.

"What are the two things?" Alex finally asked.

"Sit down and I'll tell you," she replied with a wry smile.

A part of her was already out of her coat and in the chair, but it wasn't the part that was strongest. "It's late," Alex said, hesitantly.

"Early enough to roam the frozen streets, but too late to have an apology coffee with someone you recently assaulted?"

And Alex couldn't help but laugh. A laugh that reached all the way into her iced up chest, warming her heart from the inside out.

"I already apologized for that, and it was hardly an assault."

"Never question the accuser. And besides, I closed my book for you."

Those blue eyes blinking up at her in feigned innocence were just too much for Alex. And the same mysterious force that controlled her feet and led her in there, now took off her coat and hung it over the back of the chair at the opposite end of the table. She pulled off her beanie as she sat down, running her fingers through her hair. What was she even doing? There was a party she had to get back to. A girlfriend. But it felt good sitting there. And good was a feeling in short supply lately. And so Alex resolved to not think too much.

"I would like to start by saying that this isn't my usual choice of reading material," the woman said once Alex had settled into her seat. "It's more peer pressure than anything else. Which leads me to my next point, and that is I'm not usually this pathetic when it comes to peer pressure. I can hold my own. Even so, I would prefer that if our paths were to ever cross again, that you kindly not mention this to anyone who might look as if they know me. However, if in the time between now and then, you have read the book, and there are no witnesses, I would very much like to hear your opinion on the writer's decision to craft a refreshingly complex teenaged female, only to screw it all up with a love triangle trope that the story is better off without. And in closing to this preamble, I want to say that any girl who has you willfully submitting yourself to these temperatures, on a Friday night no less, is never worth it."

Alex had been mildly amused by the woman's rambling until that point, and she straightened in her chair. "Excuse me?"

"Calling 'em as I see 'em. Coffee?" She waved a finger in the direction of one of the wait staff. "I've been getting these blinding headaches lately. You know that feeling when you have to just get out of wherever you are and go be somewhere else?"

Alex was dumbfounded by the woman's forthcoming nature, but found herself nodding in perfect understanding. She knew that feeling only too well.

"Anyway," the woman went on, "I cross the river when that happens and usually end up here. The coffee's okay and the music soothes me. After ten it's like you've traveled back in time. Mostly to the 90s," she ended with a laugh.

"I liked the 90s," Alex said, suddenly nostalgic for simpler times. Thom Yorke's wistful vocals on Creep entrenched the feeling even more, and Alex felt that unsettled feeling that had been hounding her strangely begin to fade.

A waitress showed up with a pot of hot coffee and a clean mug, silently pouring one for Alex and refilling the woman's almost empty cup before walking off again.

Alex took a sip from her steaming mug and grimaced. "I thought you said the coffee's okay."

The woman laughed lightly. "I lied. I do a pretty good job of it with the right motivation."

"Yeah? What was your motivation?" Alex asked, one perfect eyebrow perfectly arched.

"You can't guess?"

Alex self-consciously fixed her glasses, and took another sip of the bad coffee to hide the smile she was having trouble suppressing. Of all the ways her night could have turned out, shameless flirting with a total stranger didn't even make it onto her list.

"Migraines," the woman spoke again. "Mine are usually stress-related. You?"

"What?"

"I know that face," she said, and Alex dropped her eyes.

Yes, her head was still killing her. She didn't know it was that obvious. She absently twirled the cup of coffee in front her, losing focus in the black liquid. "I never used to get them. But the last two days…" Her voice trailed off and she just shrugged.

The woman didn't push, it was like she could sense the immense wall guarding Alex and knew to tread lightly. So instead, she carried on talking in that easy, casual way she had.

"I've been approached to head up a new research project. I'll have my own team, unlimited access to MIT's resources, and a budget of over four million for my first year."

"That sounds like a party, not a migraine."

"I'm twenty-five," the woman said. "If I do this, I can kiss my social life goodbye. I'd probably never see the sun, living out the next twenty years in a lab."

"That kind of money though? It sounds like a big deal."

"If we get it right, my work will change the world."

Alex had no clue about what the work was, but support from one of the best universities in the world couldn't be a bad thing. "I don't see how this is a problem for you," she said.

And for a moment she allowed herself to acknowledge the fact that for the first time since she opened her eyes the previous day, she didn't feel like she was flailing. Sitting down, having a normal conversation, with a normal person… Then she closed off that part of her mind again, that was constantly trying to grab onto something solid. To find answers, to make sense of things that had no sense. Because for the first time since the previous day, that wasn't necessary.

"When I was a kid, they wanted to fast-track my schooling. Called me gifted, or whatever. I was miserable. After three months I quit. Told them I wouldn't go back unless it was in my old grade, with my old friends. I could've been so much further in my career by now, but that life… it's lonely. You miss out on so much. It was easy for me to say no back then, but now… my mentor says I'm wasting my potential. And that if I pass up this opportunity, the work will still get done. Without me. And someone else's name will be on it. So, what do you think I should do?"

"Me?" Alex asked, genuinely surprised. "What do you care what I think?"

"I don't know. You look like you know a thing or two about making the right choices."

A laugh bubbled out of Alex then. A real, true laugh that grew out of her belly. Because seriously?

"Why is that funny?" the woman asked with a curious smile.

"Yeah, I know about those kinds of choices. I also know how to avoid them and consistently do the opposite."

"Is that why she kicked you out?" And the look in the woman's eyes told Alex that this whole time, she'd been building up to this point. Been dying to get to it, in fact.

Her laugh simmered down and Alex dropped her gaze. "Nobody kicked me out," she said softly. "You should do the project."

"Uh-uh, that's over. We're talking about you now."

"There's nothing to talk about," Alex said, fixing her with what she hoped was a straight face.

"I call bullshit."

"What is your problem?"

"I told you my problem," the woman replied, "in great detail, actually. Now it's your turn."

Alex shook her head slowly, wondering how she managed to get to this place with this stranger. And was she actually considering telling her?

"You'll think I'm crazy," she said, and finished off her coffee.

"You look like you can handle it." They entered into a kind of stare-off, with Alex sizing her up and the woman not so much as flinching. "Oh come on, safety in sharing with a stranger, and all that. Just tell me."

Alex sighed, and just as she opened her mouth to speak, the woman cut in:

"I should warn you though, that now you've made such a big deal about it, my expectations are pretty high, so you better not disappoint."

Oh, Alex was sure there was no question of that happening. And instead of feeling horribly vulnerable, like every other time she talked about her situation, a sense of playfulness enveloped her. Like when you're trading stories with friends after a rough night out.

"Let's see," she started, "It began yesterday, the headaches. And I guess, gaps in my memory is probably the best way to describe it. According to some people I flew in from London, but I remember coming back from Berlin. I don't know which one is the truth, and literally go from being fine one second to feeling like I'm losing my mind the next." The woman watched her closely, but Alex didn't see any of that sympathy and pity that usually clouded Nicky's features. Just interest. She went on. "So that shirt you saw me in yesterday? It's not mine, and when you said it was part of a limited run, I thought I could maybe find who it belongs to. Along with some answers. But that didn't work out so well, and now I'm here. Trying to catch a break from all of it, I guess."

The woman sat in quiet contemplation for a few seconds, and then said: "You were right, I think you're batshit crazy."

"Screw you," Alex laughed.

"And here I was thinking you were going to lay some typical girl drama on me."

"I wish," Alex replied, and actually meant it. If only it were that simple. "So what do you think? Any hypnotherapists at MIT who can help me remember?"

"Unfortunately not."

"Yeah, that's what I thought." She was smiling, but inside there was a deadly weight in her chest all of a sudden. That playfulness gone. Apparently it was too soon to be candid about the situation, and Alex suddenly felt exposed. She picked at a chip on the handle of her mug, focusing harder than necessary so she wouldn't have to meet the unshifting gaze of the woman in front of her.

"I can't help you remember, but I do know a guy who might be able to help you out with that t-shirt."

Alex's head snapped up. "What?"

"One of the guys who runs that site owes me a favor. I did some coding for his mother last year. She started this flower delivery thing to make extra money, and also to distract her from the 20-year-old nanny her husband was fucking."

Alex stared at the woman, her expression both puzzled and questioning. Was this really happening? "Can we skip the nanny-fucking and go back to the part where you said you knew someone who could help me?"

"The website that sold that shirt," the woman explained. "I can call in the favor and get the details of everyone who made a purchase on that flash sale."

Alex swallowed. Was she for real right now? Could it really going to be that easy? And why would she even want to help her? Her heart rate picked up pace at the idea that she might be closing in on that break she'd been searching for.

"You can really do that?"

The woman shrugged. "Aaron's a nice guy. He'll do it."

"Why?"

"Why would he do it?"

"Why are _you_ doing this? You don't know me. I spilled your coffee…" Alex said feebly. She was having trouble making sense of the unexpected kindness and also of how things were suddenly working in her favor for a change.

"You need help, and I can help you. It's no big deal."

"It's a huge deal," Alex replied, the exhilaration of finding out some kind of truth coursing freely through her. "A really huge deal."

"Fine, it's a huge deal," the woman said with a placating smile. "Give me your number, and I'll call you as soon as I find out anything."

Alex's heart dropped. Her number. "I- I lost my phone."

"Here…" The woman pulled her pen from where it was saving her place in the book. "Give it a couple of days," she said, taking Alex's hand and poising the pen to scribble her phone number, "then call me and we can-" the rest of her words died as Alex snatched her hand back before she could make a mark.

Alex buried her hands under the table, not making direct eye contact.

"Oh, right," the woman said simply, getting the message, then tore a piece of the paper napkin lying beside her cup and used that instead.

"Sorry to break it up ladies," the waitress called out from the back of the room. "But we need to close."

Alex looked around for the first time and realized they were the only ones still in there. Time had gone by so quickly and entirely unnoticed.

"Sorry," she said to the waitress, and rose, pulling on her coat. Her hands were trembling so badly, the effects of the tail end of their conversation wreaking all kinds of havoc. She dug them into the pockets of her jeans and waited.

The woman stood up too, dropping a few notes on the table before coming up to where Alex was standing. She waited for Alex to look at her, locking her gaze, a sly smirk on her face as she slipped the piece of napkin into the tight space of Alex's pocket.

Alex tightened her jaw, careful not to shift her eyes in case it gave anything away, careful not to show the jolt that ran up her spine the second the woman's skin made contact with hers.

"There," the woman said softly. "Save it someplace she won't find it. I should know something in a couple of days. Call."

Alex gave a stiff nod as the woman backed away slowly, every nerve ending in her body alighting to the gulf that opened up between them, protesting each step that made it bigger. She swallowed hard.

"Thanks," she said. "Really."

"No sweat," the woman said as she pulled on her coat, then grabbed her book from the table and started out.

Alex followed close behind her, heart hammering for reasons she wasn't ready to explore just yet. The night had definitely taken a few unexpected turns.

The woman pushed through the door, and held it open for Alex, letting go once she got there.

"I guess I'll see you around," she said, and started across the street.

Alex watched her go, the lightness in her step. Her fingers curled around the piece of napkin that currently burned a hole in her pocket. Everything about the woman was light and easy. Infectious to the point where she had Alex enraptured without even trying. A sneaking sense of loss crept up on her then. Like her feeling of being unburdened was fading into the darkness, along with the mysterious woman. Alex buttoned up her coat and started off in the direction of home. Thoughts of what – and who – she would find there breaking down that lightness in her even more. Her fingers closed on the napkin in her pocket and she pulled it out, screwing up her eyes to study the rushed scrawl by the light of the moon. And then she stopped. Her feet concrete slabs on the tilting sidewalk that made her head swim. Because the number written there also came with a name. The sight of which got her hammering heart leaping right into her throat, making it hard to breathe. And now that she thought about it… there was an eerie familiarity to that voice…

 _I'll be right behind you_


	14. Part 2: Chapter 4

Hi everyone! I'm so happy to finally be updating and good news is I'm getting my own wifi in two weeks, so updates should be more regular:) Thank you all so much for continuing the amazing comments for this story. I can't tell you enough how much it's appreciated. I love reading what you think so keep them coming! I'm still so surprised by how many of you have tagged along here, and even impacted the story without knowing it (through insightful PMs mostly). So thank you, thank you, thank you! But before I leave you to read what's next, I have a question and a statement:

Question - I feel like the chapters are becoming too long. I started with a comfortable 4k but now I'm doubling that and I'm not sure if it's too much to read, or...?

Statement - This is just to clarify the scenes in italics. They are scenes from Alex and Piper's life/relationship in the original timeline and universe. I'm including them to give a sense of what happened before this story started. They are not memories from Alex or Piper, just story:)

* * *

 **The Equation Part 2:**

 **The Woman from the Other Side**

 **Chapter 4**

 **/**

 **Saturday, November 21** **st** **, 2009**

 **/**

Alex didn't know how long she'd been aimlessly wandering the streets of the sleeping city, but it didn't matter much to her. The peaceful stillness that always blanketed the hours between full dark and dawn wrapped around her, creating a space of quiet calm for her mind to unpack. A quiet calm she hadn't felt since all this started, and so she held onto it. Despite the hour and the cold. Her boots beat a steady path along the sidewalk as she mused over the state of things – moments when she felt completely untethered from reality, and then others when she felt so deeply connected to something she couldn't name. And for every explanation, a hundred more questions sprung up, but her mind consistently circled back to just one salient fact and it was this: She had dreamed of a woman she didn't know, and tonight that dream had taken form in a pizzeria downtown.

Piper.

She mouthed the name. Half afraid to say it out loud in case, like a mythical incantation, the sound of it might cause the blonde to suddenly materialize out of thin air right there in her path.

Piper.

Who was currently the biggest mystery of all. Because for all the randomness surrounding Piper's appearance in her life, Alex believed there was nothing random about it at all. There had to be more to it. And she had to find out what that was.

"No such thing as coincidence," Alex mumbled to herself as she came up to the apartment building she'd been winding her way toward all along, whether she was conscious of it or not.

She ascended the stone stairway two steps at a time, her long legs making easy work of it, and buzzed number 19. There was an interminable silence during which she imagined Nicky hauling herself out of bed in a shock of hair and grumbled curses as she made her way to the intercom at her front door. She pressed the button again. Repeatedly.

The speaker on the right suddenly crackled to life.

"I swear to God…" a hoarse voice filtered through the speaker to Alex.

"Let me up."

There was a pause and then, "Go home, Vause."

But she didn't want to go home. "First buzz me in."

"Do you know what time it is?"

"Buzz me in and you can tell me."

"Go. Away."

"I need to talk to you."

"Don't care."

"Come on, I'm freezing my ass off out here."

"Care even less."

And a loud click signaled the break in their conversation.

"Nicky?" Alex called to the dead speaker. Silence. She pressed the buzzer again, more incensed than before. "Nick? Are you kidding me?" She knew her friend couldn't hear her, but said it anyway. Was Nicky really going to leave her hanging in the dead of night, out in the cold, even after she told her-

Another loud click. This time from the large double doors at the top of the stairway. Alex bounded over and nipped inside the empty entrance hall as if the invitation were on a timer that would self-rescind if she took too long to act.

"This better be good," Nicky said.

Alex had reached the fourth floor landing to find the door open, her unimpressed friend standing there to greet her, hands on her hips, wearing an oversized, worn-through Rick Astley t-shirt. Like a fed-up 80s mom – big hair and all – about to lecture her rebel teenager about broken curfew.

"Can I come in, or do you want to do this out here?"

Nicky fixed her with a solid glare for a good few seconds before moving aside so she could pass. Alex stepped inside the dark apartment and quietly clipped the door closed behind her, waiting. She was sure there'd be more.

"Disappear from your own party to clear your head or whatever, okay, I get it, I guess," Nicky picked up her rant, as Alex knew she would. "But staying away for the entire thing and leaving me to deal with Sylvia who's freaking the fuck out because, oh god what if something bad's happened to my poor poor dumbfuck girlfriend who I can't reach because she has no phone and what if she's lying dead in a ditch somewhere? Inexfuckingcusable, Vause." Her voice strained with the effort it took to keep at the whisper so often required by lack of light and lateness of the hour.

"She called me a dumbfuck?" Alex asked, keeping her voice low just the same.

"No, that was me," Nicky conceded grudgingly, folding her arms across her chest. "But you deserve it. Everything else though, all the rest of that clingy, obsessive bullshit-"

"Sorry, okay?" Alex offered the apology quickly and without effort. She knew Nicky wasn't really upset and only giving her hard time because that's what she did, and Alex didn't want to waste time talking about this. She wanted to placate Nicky and get to the reason for her visit.

Nicky waved a dismissive hand and padded through to the kitchenette which was also in darkness. "Please allow me this moment to expressly refuse your lame-ass apology," she called over her shoulder.

Alex took a breath and followed the sound of her friend's continued muttering. Nicky wasn't going to make this easy. She stuffed her gloves into the pockets of her coat and, coming up to the small counter where Nicky stood readying cups for coffee, pressed a flat palm to one of the round push-lamps above the microwave, instantly bringing their immediate area under a wash of dull yellow light.

"Was she okay when you left?" Alex asked.

Nicky shrugged. "Is she ever okay?"

Alex sighed heavily and ripped off her beanie, running agitated fingers through her hair. She knew she was going to be in for something when she eventually got home, but the more Nicky painted the picture of what she'd be going home to, the more Alex wanted to avoid the situation all together.

"I texted her," Nicky said then, snapping open the top of the coffee machine to get a brew going.

"What do you mean? When?"

"What do you mean, what do I mean? Now. When I buzzed you up." Nicky's tone was the opposite of Alex's alarm.

Alex glanced over to the doorway, half expecting Sylvia to come barging in, all out of breath and furious, demanding an explanation. But she didn't, and when Alex was sure she wouldn't, she turned back to Nicky.

"You're unbelievable. What did you say?"

"I don't think you get it." Nicky paused what she was doing to fix her no-nonsense gaze on Alex. "When people care about you, they worry about what happens to you. I just told her that you were here and that you were okay. The ditches of Boston are safe for one more night."

This got a small smile from Alex who relaxed, giving in to her friend's reasoning. She just didn't like the idea of people keeping tabs on her. First Nicky playing informant to Diane, and now Sylvia. She felt like she was being watched from all sides, and at a time when she wasn't sure about what she was doing or who she even was at any given time, the whole thing unsettled her.

"Thank you, Nicky, my dearest, smartest, most beautiful friend," Nicky said. "How can I ever repay your kindness?"

Alex chuckled softly. "Thanks," she mumbled. "I guess."

Nicky flipped the switch that brought the coffee machine gurgling to life and turned around, leaning against the counter with her feet crossed at the ankles, arms folded across her chest.

"So spill."

Alex recognized the business tone and nodded stiffly, shoving her hands into the pockets of her jeans. The fingers of one brushed the piece of napkin still nestled safely there.

"Okay," she started, feeling her heart beat just a little faster. "I need you to tell me what you know about Piper." She stopped. It was the first time she'd spoken the name out loud. Heard her own voice say it. She wasn't sure what she was feeling but there was a definite shift in the pit of her stomach, a low thud thudding in the back of her head. Nicky's brows furrowed slightly at the mention of the name and Alex continued, "Chapman, I think you said was her last name? Your probie's sister."

Nicky shook her head. She knew exactly who Alex was talking about. That wasn't the problem. "Where were you tonight?" she asked, and just as Alex opened her mouth to respond, "No wait, better question – who were you with?"

Alex's mouth snapped shut again without a word, and she felt herself shrinking a little under Nicky's accusatory gaze. She had nothing to feel guilty about, but there she was.

"You're kidding me, right?" Nicky's irritation made the use of her inside voice impossible. The time for that had come and gone, it seemed. And her stance was no longer nonchalant either, as she pushed up from the counter she'd been leaning against to round on Alex. "Tell me you're kidding. Please say this is a joke."

"It's not like that," Alex said, holding up her hands to calm Nicky down. But it didn't work.

"Then by all means, tell me what it's like. Because if you're doing what I think you're doing… after you promised me… you _promised_ you wouldn't get me caught in the middle of your sideshow dramas again-"

This bit caught Alex by surprise and ripped her train of thought onto a different track. "What?"

The dim light around her seemed to pulse in time with the thudding that was gradually building up in her head. It was happening again.

"I sat there tonight and assured her she had nothing to worry about," Nicky went on, "I hope to God you're not making a liar out of me again..." And then the roll she was on slowed to a stop. It was Alex's confused expression that stopped it. Nicky's heart dropped. "Tell me how we met," she said after a second, her voice suddenly low and soft, maybe even a little timid.

Alex tried hard to gather the scattered pieces of her thoughts.

"Tell me," Nicky pressed on.

Alex looked at her, shaking her head slowly. She knew what Nicky meant. What she must have picked up on – the moment she had phased out. "I know who you are," she said simply. And for a split second, she doubted herself.

"You know who I am, or who I'm supposed to be?" Nicky pushed her to clarify. After their conversation at the party the night before, she knew better than to just accept what Alex said at face value. She knew a little bit about how this thing with her memory worked. "How did we meet?" she asked again.

Alex felt that now familiar thrumming in the back of her head grow more intense as the pain crept all the way around to her temples. She'd slipped again. Had no idea what Nicky was referring to. Well, she picked up on the implication that she had fooled around on Sylvia but there was no memory of it for her to call on.

But it was only a slip.

Because now suddenly there was a face – Digger was the woman's name. A truck driver and stupid thing she had done out of boredom, and to see if she could get away with it. She didn't. And the consequences included being forced to crash at Nicky's for more than a month before Sylvia finally forgave her. Alex felt her insides begin to settle back down again as the story of her past fell back in the places it belonged. The pain in her head was still there though.

"It was a party at some club downtown," she said then. "I can't remember the name. You were puking your guts out on the sidewalk as I was leaving, and I came over to you to bum a smoke. Which you still give me shit about because I never offered to help, although in my defense-"

"You were off your face too," Nicky finished, satisfied that she was in fact speaking to her best friend, but still pretty freaked out by what had happened. It was one thing to listen to Alex describe it, but to actually see the change behind her eyes...

"So what's the deal with Chapman, then?" she asked, more than ready to move on.

"I said her name."

"You what?"

"In my sleep apparently," Alex explained. "Her name, Nick. Before I even met her. And then last night, I saw her through the window at Sal's and something told me to go in. I can't explain it, but I just had a feeling about her. We talked, and she's…" Alex quickly nipped that stream of thinking and refocused. Now was definitely not the time or place to be going down that road. "Anyway, it turns out she knows someone who can help me with the t-shirt. To find who it belongs to."

"No shit." A part of Nicky felt like all of it was a little too hokey for her taste. Dreams and feelings and deeper meanings… She didn't buy into all of that. But the look on Alex's face, the way she sounded so relieved at having something to hold on to… it made Nicky not want to play devil's advocate just then.

"So I'm dreaming about a person I don't know, saying her name even though we've never met, and she's the one who can help me with the only lead I have? Am I crazy or does that seem a little too convenient? I need to know what you know about her. If I can find answers-"

"I don't know anything," Nicky said. "I mean, what I told you before… she's old money, super smart, really gives a shit about her kid brother... that's it." She wasn't liking the idea of Piper Chapman becoming a key player in an already volatile situation. She had a bad feeling about it all.

Alex sighed heavily, frustration cramping in her tightened jaw. "What about the brother?"

"What about him?"

"I don't know," Alex said, trying hard to hide her exasperation, "didn't he maybe say anything about her in his sessions?"

"You mean the confidential sessions we have that are confidential?"

"Nick…"

"He hasn't said anything," Nicky said, moving for the finished coffee. "Honestly, he spends most of his time going on and on about his parents. The mom in particular." She filled the two mugs and handed one to Alex, who looked markedly disappointed. "But I guess there's no harm in prying a little more," she added then, feeling somewhat responsible for that disappointment.

"You'd do that?" Alex asked, her face brightening.

Nicky shrugged. "I'm not promising anything. And I'm not putting my license on the line either," she added quickly.

"I don't expect you to," Alex replied, ready and willing to agree to any kind of terms if it meant she would get what she wanted. "I feel like I'm onto something here. I wouldn't ask if I didn't think it could help."

Nicky took a slow sip of her coffee, going over and over the situation in her mind.

"So this couldn't wait til the sun came up?" she asked. "Or at least until after you checked in at home? Got some sleep maybe. A shower…"

"You don't know what it's been like."

"No, I don't know," Nicky solemnly agreed. "Which is why I want you to take this." She placed her mug on the counter top and started rifling through one of the kitchen drawers. Alex looked on in silent anticipation. "I should probably think about getting proper lights in this place," Nicky muttered under her breath as the rattle and clank from various objects inside the drawer grew louder.

Eventually she emerged with a triumphant cry, holding up a white business card like Arthur who'd just pulled the sword from the rock.

"Here," she said, handing it to Alex who didn't move to take it. Instead, she simply eyed the thing like it would grow fangs at any second and sink them into her fingers if she did. "It's an old connection of mine from when I started cleaning up," Nicky explained, pushing the card at her.

Alex started to protest, but Nicky cut her short. "I know you're not into it, and you don't think a shrink is going to help any, but just… just hold onto it." It sounded like a plea. Or as much as a plea could come from someone like Nicky. "In case."

It was impossible to deny the request, and Alex pinched the card from Nicky's fingers, quickly burying it in the back pocket of her jeans without even glancing at it.

"There you go," Nicky said. "I mean, you're willing to take a long shot on this Chapman kid, so it makes sense to round up a collection of long shots. Better your odds."

Alex didn't agree. Piper didn't feel like a long shot at all. She felt like exactly the path Alex was supposed to be taking. But she didn't say that. She simply nodded, and mumbled a non-committal thanks. Knowing she'd never use the contact, but also knowing that her acceptance of it was necessary to appease Nicky.

"Okay, let's move this to the living room. I don't want our conversation about how you're going to handle your girlfriend's reaction to you spending the night with a college girl to wake Lorna."

"I didn't spend the night with her, and Lorna?" Alex asked, genuinely surprised. "You're letting them stay over now?"

"Don't give me that look, as if you don't know how girls can fuck you up when you least expect it. I need to sit down."

Alex watched Nicky walk through to the living room, heard the weight of her fall into the soft pillows of a couch, the tap of her mug as she set it down on the coffee table. She was meant to follow, but found herself unable to move. Because yes, she could relate to the volatile nature of girls and complicated relationships, but there was something more, something specific that wriggled in the depths of the jumbled chaos in her head. A certain relationship, a particular girl…

 _ **/**_

 _ **2013, December**_

 _ **/**_

 _They manage three blissful weeks before it happens._

 _A three-week bubble constructed especially for them. Alex and Piper. Piper and Alex. This unlikely pair – felon and faculty member – perfectly untouched by the outside world and whatever it held. Only room inside the blissful ignorance for their shared attraction that often ramps so high the air vibrates between them. But for all their desires, the build is slow. Savored._

 _They see each other nearly every day and text constantly on the days they don't. Neither feeling the need to over-analyze the recent development, each content to simply share the time together. It's a stolen glance here, the unintentional brush of fingers there, a gaze that fixes itself to the speaker's lips as words are spoken. The delicious push and pull, start and stop, the sweet, almost tentative exploration of their growing affection. This is how the first moments of falling in love creeps up on them. Slowly slowly and yet, all at once. Like a light breeze ghosting into a room when the window is cracked open on a hot summer's day. Unseen. Barely felt. But rippling through every molecule, leaving it forever changed._

 _But bubbles don't last forever._

 _And ignorant bliss is never bestowed without a sell-by date firmly attached._

 _/_

 _It's a rare clear afternoon in December. Up and down the streets every pillar and post is wrapped and twinkling in colors of red, green, and gold. Store fronts are bursting with fake snow and fake holly blossoms, and the maddening ring of joyful jingles follow you around like that drunk creepy co-worker at the annual office party. Alex and Piper are in the alley beside Brattle, combing for possible treasures among the second-hand books on display, basking in the mild winter sun and early days of infatuation. Only a few others have had the same idea, lazily weaving between the outdoor bookshelves with absentminded interest. But it doesn't even occur to the two women that they might not be alone._

" _How about this one?" Alex holds up a book she's found. "Only twenty-five cents."_

 _Piper looks up from a few shelves over, frowning at the cheesy cover art. "Probably a reason for that."_

" _It's a space opera. Isn't that what you rocket scientists are supposed to be into or whatever?"_

 _Piper rolls her eyes. "Astronomical physicist, for the hundredth time. Very different to rocket science." She continues browsing the books in front of her._

" _It is?" Alex asks, with feigned innocence. Having a go at Piper is becoming one of her favorite things to do._

 _Piper is ready to dive into a flustered tirade about the very plain and obvious differences between the two specialties but looking up, she notices the mischievous glint in Alex's eyes and the way she's working incredibly hard to not give in to laughter, and she simmers down, biting back a smile of her own._

" _You're incorrigible."_

" _I believe the word you're looking for, is hilarious," Alex says with an overly theatrical flourish, as she makes her way over to where Piper's standing. "Which reminds me, I've been meaning to ask… why is it you're teaching math, when you're all about the quantum leap stuff?"_

" _First of all, Quantum Leap was an only average 90s tv show in which any adherence to science was negligible at best and Scott Bakula was seldom on point as a dramatic actor. Pales in comparison to what I do."_

" _Are you trying to seduce me?" Alex jokes through narrow eyes._

" _And second," Piper ignores the quip and goes on, "when you teach, you give knowledge away. I love math, but physics is my life. I don't want anybody else to have it."_

 _Alex can't help but see the humor in that statement. "Aside from all the other physicists out there… and aren't you guys supposed to be this collective working to change the world? Reach new horizons or whatever?"_

" _When I change the world it'll be my name on the work. And all those other guys can suck it."_

" _Suck it? Really?"_

" _Don't make fun of me," Piper pouts playfully._

 _It works and Alex immediately changes tack. "Okay, okay, I'll stop." She draws Piper in, her arms resting casually around her waist, and even though she's all bundled up in a dark hoodie under a thick coat, the thought of all the unchartered territory beneath those layers sets Alex on edge._

" _You know, some people go their whole lives never having it… that thing that makes them crazy and happy at the same time. You know what I mean?" Piper asks, extending her own arms into the minimal warmth inside Alex's overcoat, clasping them easily behind her back. "Don't you have that? That one thing that just… gets you going? That you'd fight like crazy to not share with anyone?"_

 _Alex dips her head, feathers a soft kiss to the corner of Piper's smile. "Yes. You."_

" _Hmm, while I can appreciate your bold attempt to get in my pants, mine's still physics."_

 _This time they both laugh._

" _I don't think I've ever lost a girl to a bunch of equations before," Alex says._

" _Don't beat yourself up. They've had an unfair head start."_

" _Medicine, law, business, engineering…" Alex starts quoting with a dramatic flair, making Piper sway gently in her embrace, "…these are all noble pursuits, and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty-"_

" _Romance, love…" Piper takes over, her steady gaze holding Alex's smiling one, "…these are why we live."_

 _Alex tightens her hold around Piper's waist. "You kind of butchered it near the end, but yes. They are."_

" _I always loved that movie," Piper says with a wistful tone in her voice. "But I think I'm only really getting it now."_

" _I'm just going to have to work a little harder then. Help you get it a little more. Starting this Sunday."_

 _The mention of the coming weekend suddenly places them inside space and time – something they've become accustomed to existing without – and Piper lets out a low groan against the soft kisses Alex is placing on her lips._

" _Did I mention I hate your new job?" she says, this time pouting for real. She loosens her hold on Alex, and takes up studying the books on the shelf beside them again._

 _That night will be Alex's first of five nights a week tending a real bar in a real pub. More money for her, but less time together for them._

" _I don't think you'll be happy if all our dates involved really long walks and the occasional hot pretzel," Alex says, sweeping away the hair that's fallen across Piper's face and gently tucking it behind her ear._

 _Piper looks up with a slight frown. "Those were dates?"_

" _Shut up," Alex says with a laugh, nudging her with a shoulder. "I want to take you out. So let me."_

" _I don't like going out much." Piper grabs a battered copy of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and fans through the pages without really paying attention._

" _Dancing, theater, dinner…"_

 _Piper replaces the book on the shelf and considers Alex closely. "You want to woo me," she says with a smile._

" _So what if I do?" Alex hooks a finger through one of the loops on Piper's jeans and gives a slight tug. It's all she needs to make Piper take the two steps that closes the gap between them again._

 _And standing there that way, bodies pressed up against each other, winter in Boston doesn't exist. Only heat. Heat so alive it feels like if they don't do something about it soon, it will consume them both._

 _Soon, Alex thinks. She can't stand much more waiting._

" _You know, most girls would kill to be swept off their feet. Wined and dined."_

" _I'm not most girls," Piper says, tilting her head up._

 _Alex dips hers ever so slightly to meet Piper halfway. "I noticed."_

 _Their lips touch just as a shrill ringing slices through the air between them, making both jump._

 _Alex gives an exasperated sigh as she's forced to watch Piper retreat while she fishes the phone from her coat pocket. She slides the green icon to accept the call, and Nicky's voice bombards her ear before she can even say any kind of hello._

" _Nick, slow down," Alex says, inwardly cursing her friend's atrocious timing._

 _But Nicky's not slowing down and there's nothing Alex can do to get a word in. A deep frown weighs her expression as she tries to catch hold of the runaway train on the other end of the line. For a few seconds it's nothing but incomprehensible nonsense sounds, like when words bleed together to make a whole new and foreign language. She's about to kill the call in an attempt to force Nicky to calm down first before trying again, but then she hears something. A word that doesn't bleed into the rest. A word that makes the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Because it's not a word at all, but a name. One she wished she'd never have to hear again. And suddenly it's easy now to pick out other words and bits of phrases, like_ knows where you are… need to leave… _and the one that makes her blood run cold…_ wants you dead.

 **/**

 **Saturday, November 21** **st** **, 2009**

 **/**

It was just after 3pm when Alex walked into her apartment. She'd decided to crash at Nicky's after all, and crash was the right word for it, because her body and mind checked out as soon as her head hit the couch pillow, slipping into a deep, dreamless sleep that didn't lift until well into the afternoon. There was a quiet stillness about the place when she walked in, where the only sign of life was the heady aroma of freshly baked cinnamon buns wafting up through the hole in her living room floor. The smell unsettled her empty stomach, making it growl in protest to not being fed in almost a day. She walked through to the kitchen, slipping out of her coat and gloves as she went, with one thing on her mind: leftovers. Discarding her clothes on the counter, Alex pulled open the refrigerator and scanned its contents.

"I got you this."

Alex peered around the open refrigerator door, a mouth full of cheese balls, to find Sylvie standing there.

She pushed a brand new cell phone across the counter toward Alex. "It's fully charged and I loaded whatever contacts we share. The rest you'll have to do on your own."

Alex chewed in silence, her gaze moving from the phone to Sylvie, whose expression was pretty much unreadable. She seemed fine. Sounded fine. And here was this nice thing her girlfriend had done – not only picked up a new phone, but set it up for her too. But for some inexplicable reason, Alex found herself irritated by it. By it, and by her. She gently closed the refrigerator and picked up the phone, inspecting it with mild curiosity.

"Thanks," she said. "You didn't have to do."

"After last night? Yeah I did. I hate being out of contact."

And there it was.

Alex's irritation prickled. "So does it come with a collar and a leash too? A chip in the back of my neck so you can track me at all times? Or did you just have them install it in here?" she asked, waving the phone at a tight-lipped Sylvia.

"I worry."

An incredulous laugh bristled out of Alex then. "You worry, Nicky worries, everyone's so goddamn worried about me, but the last time I checked, I was an adult who could take care of herself. I just wish you'd back off and let me do that."

Her regret was instant. The look on Sylvie's face made it worse. She didn't have to go off at her like that. Sylvie was still blatantly unaware of everything she was dealing with – the gaps in her memory, the headaches… It wasn't fair to come down on her.

"I'm losing you, aren't I?" Sylvie said softly.

Alex deflated. "Syl…"

"Who am I kidding?" Sylvie said with a bitter laugh. "I never got you back after that last time. Not really." And her eyes brimmed. Alex had nothing to say. "It's her, isn't it. This… Piper? Who is she? A transcontinental hook-up? Is she why you're always itching to leave town?"

Alex ran her fingers through her hair. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"So then tell me."

Alex shook her head. "It's complicated," she offered feebly. Because where would she even begin to explain? She didn't fully understand it herself.

"It's always fucking complicated with you, Alex," Sylvie seethed, but without raising her voice. It would've been less hurtful if she had.

"I'm not fucking around on you." Alex left the phone so she could take Sylvie's hands. The way they trembled inside her own made her feel like shit. She should be better. "Hey, I swear I'm not." She brushed Sylvie's hair from her face, gazing deep into the unsettled brown eyes and feeling immense guilt at being the reason for it.

"So then what?" Sylvie asked after a while. "What's pulling you away from me?" She gently brushed Alex's cheek, leaving her fingers to linger there. "Why do I feel like I've lost you?"

But Alex had no answer. Because she felt like she was kind of losing herself too.

So the only response she could manage was to rest her forehead against Sylvie's, eyes closed, mind working hard to convey her best intentions through some kind of telepathic osmosis. But after a second, Sylvie pulled away, seemingly unfazed, and Alex realized that they never had that kind of relationship. The kind of connection that made words an unnecessary. Somewhere in the back of her restless mind though, she knew she'd had it once before. She must have. Or why else would that urge feel like something so natural? So familiar.

Sylvie gave her hands a last squeeze and pushed past her. "I'll go to Joel's after my shift," she said, taking her jacket from the coat rack at the door. "Stay there for a few days."

"Syl, no," Alex replied, not moving from her spot in the kitchen.

"It's what you want, right? For me to back off?" She pulled on her jacket, zipped it all the way up under her chin and looked at Alex expectantly.

But Alex wasn't sure what she was supposed to say. So she said nothing, just dug her hands into the pockets of her jeans.

Sylvie gave a curt nod and slid the door open. "Call me when you're ready to talk. Or not. Whatever."

The sound of the door scraping on its old metal rail, the clang as it kissed the latch, was amplified in the silence that followed. Leaving Alex feeling even more alone.

Her eyes fell on the phone still lying where she'd left it, and a hasty decision was made. Now she was the one who was shaking as she removed the crumpled piece of napkin from her pocket, holding it up so she could read the hurried scrawl of a number left there the night before. She brought up the contacts on her new phone, chose to add a new entry, and then hesitated. If it wasn't like that, and if it was nothing for Sylvie to be concerned about, then there should be no reason why she couldn't just save Piper's details. Feeling like the worst kind of liar, Alex punched in the name Peter, followed by the number. Then she quickly cleared the screen and locked the phone, replacing it on the counter before moving through to her bedroom to put some distance between her and it. Like she was afraid reason might kick in and she'd erase the entry altogether, destroy the incriminating napkin, and just carry on with everything as if it never happened. As if Piper never showed up and turned everything upside down. Like she didn't exist. Because was all of this worth it?

Yes. The voice in the back of her mind answered without hesitation, and Alex believed it instantly. She could feel how right it was without a doubt. She was going to get to the bottom of this whole thing and everything else would work itself out.

It was with this sense of justification that she went on to have a hot shower. She pulled on some jeans and a t-shirt, her hair leaving wet splotches all over her back, and felt more awake and ready for the day. And even though the day was well into its tail end, her renewed energy made it feel like it was only getting started. So after prepping a decent plate of leftover bites from the party the night before with a cold beer to compliment it, she settled onto her bed, legs crossed, the strewn contents of the backpack laid out in front of her. She'd been over it all and found nothing, but she wasn't ready to give up just yet. Popping another one of those cheese balls she couldn't get enough of into her mouth, she leaned over to flick on the bedside lamp, and then got going.

The notebook was first. She flipped it open and pulled out the folded wad of paper stuck between its blank pages. The edges of the folds were almost worn through, and when she unfolded it, spreading out the sheets of music side by side, the whole thing resembled a lost artifact from a time gone by. She considered the handwritten music notes and tried to piece together some kind of melody. It didn't make any sense. Not the untidy scribbles or her attempt to hum them. Alex pushed the dratted sheets aside and turned her attention to the notebook itself. Every item in that backpack seemed to hold significance, even if she didn't know what it was yet. But this… She turned the notebook over and over in her hands, the unblemished moleskin soft and cool against her skin. It was brand new. Unused. So why was it in there? Alex groaned out loud as she tossed the book aside, suddenly wishing for some super Sherlockian powers of detection and observation. A weary laugh bubbled out of her. Because yeah right, Sherlock Holmes. She wasn't even close to Nancy Drew- The thought kicked something loose in her head that gave her pause. She looked over at the notebook where it lay open on the bed beside her, the golden glow of the lamp washing over its pages. She stared at it, something catching hold in the recesses of her mind. Because new books didn't fall open that way. No. New books always wanted to remain closed until after a few reads when their spines were softened up and they were ready to let you in. She leaned over to get a closer look, a slight furrow in her brow, vaguely aware that her heartrate had started to climb. And then she saw it. Under that specific light, at that specific angle… it was barely there, but-

Alex snatched up the notebook, ripping off her glasses and pressing her nose almost right up to the unmarked page. But there was nothing. Her breathing became quick and shallow as she shifted onto her knees and stuck the notebook back under the lamplight. Something. Pulled it back. Nothing. Under the light.

Definitely something.

She started to shake. For no reason whatsoever her memory pulled her back to a time in grade school. Her mother was working three jobs, which meant they often went long periods of time without seeing each other. That's when the exchange of notes started. She'd leave one on her way out to school, and when she'd get home, there'd be a response beside her dinner plate on the kitchen table. And why would she think of something so obscure at a time like this?

Because the notes weren't any old regular notes. Because it was at the height of Alex's Nancy Drew obsession. So they were secret notes written in invisible ink. Only, it wasn't really invisible ink. They couldn't afford that. It was just-

"Lemon juice," Alex whispered into the silence around her, barely able to contain herself.

She bounded off the bed, notebook in hand and raced to the kitchen. Dropping the book on the counter, she began opening and closing cupboard doors.

"Iron. You iron them out to see what they say," she said to herself, her voice all choked up with excitement and victory and could it really be this easy?

But there was the broom closet, and plates, cups, more plates, serving dishes… Alex slammed the last door and straightened, shoulders slumped as she realized the reason behind the missing iron.

"Fuck."

She never did her own laundry. It was either a laundry service or Diane. Cursing her first world laziness, Alex drummed her fingers on the counter top.

"Okay, new plan. Come on, Alex. Think…"

Her eyes landed on the oven at the opposite end of the room.

"Yes? Yes, yes, yes!"

Lunging for the notebook, she tore out the first few pages, fingers trembling, and shoved them into the gaping mouth of the oven, laying them out on the rack like a row of flatbreads. Only after the oven door clipped shut did she take a second to stop and think. She had to be careful not to burn them, just heat them up to reveal the writing.

"Grill or bake?" Alex pondered out loud, her eyes darting from one dial to the next. Then, feeling wasted time breathe down her neck… "Fuck it" … she snapped the dial to its lowest grill setting.

And standing with her palms pressed flat against the glass of the oven door, not taking her eyes off the grilling pages, Alex waited.


	15. The Equation Part 2 - Chapter 5

Hi everyone! I'm so sorry for the long wait on this chapter. I have no excuse except that I've been so uninspired lately. Netflix holding season 6 hostage isn't helping my mood much either :/ It's taken me weeks to get this chapter to a point where I was just 'Fuck it, it's going up, I don't care if it's shit' and as I'm typing this, I'm suddenly filled with dread that it's absolute shit. Go easy on me please.

* * *

 **The Equation Part 2:**

 **The Woman from the Other Side**

 **Chapter 5**

 _Outside Alex's bedroom the streets are empty. Barren except for a thick blanket of snow offering up millions of tiny diamonds to dance under the glow of a bullet-silver moon. No feet will disturb them tonight. No cars to destroy their perfection. Not with the blizzard warning keeping everyone safely locked up in their homes. Playing board games around the dining table, double-checking stashes of food and candles and matches to light them. Clamoring for a sense of control. The weight of the looming storm reminding them every so often, there's none to be had. So they batten down the hatches, some playing their games, some watching TV, some_

" _You're going to die." Piper's voice is soft, thoughtful, her fingers not once giving up the feathery trace up and down the arm draped lazily across her middle. As if she doesn't recognize the weight of her words at all._

 _Alex does._

 _Exhausted and loved out, halfway between sleep and waking on the pillow beside Piper. But the weight of those words crash down on her like an avalanche of angry snow.. It was too good to last – this moment of contentment shrouding their tired, tangled limbs. Lately it's as if Kubra is everywhere, even right here in her bed._

" _Everybody dies," Alex replies eventually, and nuzzles into the smooth softness of Piper's neck. Searching for that sweet spot where sleep will take her again, where every bad thing in life doesn't exist._

" _It doesn't matter where you go," Piper says._

 _She's not ready to give up just yet. They've been granted an extra couple of days with the blizzard making any kind of travel impossible. But she knows that when those storm clouds pass, Alex will leave. Maybe forever. And she's not ready to give up just yet._

" _You'll always be unfinished business to him."_

 _Without coming out of her safe space, Alex gently presses her fingertips to Piper's lips. "Shhhh… don't."_

 _Piper lifts the hand from her mouth, kisses the palm, and holds it to her chest. "Even if he gets distracted," she goes on, Alex groans, "with whatever it is people like him get distracted by-"_

" _Pipes…"_

" _-you'll always be looking over your shoulder. He'll never leave you alone."_

 _Alex pulls out of Piper's hold and sits up, dragging the bedsheet with her, elbows on knees, fingers buried in her tousled hair. They have two days at best before she has to leave, and she doesn't want to spend it thinking about Kubra or how the hell she's going to put the slip on a man nobody can run from._

 _Piper reaches out to caress the newly exposed flesh on her back. "I know you said no, but I think you should go to the authorities."_

 _A pained laugh escapes her. "Authorities. Right."_

" _Maybe this time with proof of a threat they'll be more helpful. They're the only ones who can prot-"_

" _I can protect myself," Alex says through a clenched jaw. She knows first-hand that nobody gives a shit about cons._

 _Piper gives up her gentle stroking of Alex's back and lets her hand drop to the sheet quickly growing cold behind her._

" _I don't believe you," she says. "I think that unless you get help from the FBI or find him first, you're just putting off the inevitable."_

" _Jesus."_

" _He'll find you, and he will kill you. It's logic. If you just do the math-"_

" _No." Alex turns so suddenly, her form is nothing but a blur in shadows as she positions against Piper. She doesn't want to think about it anymore. About him. That's not what these last few days with Piper are for…_

 _Their bodies come together like a sigh in the dark, Don't do math, she says, and kisses her softly, Not now, kisses her again, brushes Piper's hair back, lets her hand float down, her fingers brushing the quickening pulse in her throat, gently palms her breast, Piper arches into the touch, Let's do this instead, she says, catching the hard peak between her fingers, a hand sinks into her hair, guides her open mouth to tease and suck, she rocks her hips, grinding against the exquisite thigh between her legs, a moan, who from, she can't tell, I don't want you to go, someone somewhere faraway, Or die, she places warm kisses along her jaw, her neck, her collarbone, her fingers trailing across the smooth plane of her stomach, and then lower, Just be here, with me, she says, grinds harder, hot breath on her mouth, needy fingers digging into the soft flesh on her hips, her breath catches, she stares deep into blue eyes shot black, Forget everything, velvet voice and persuasive fingers, gently coaxing, a hand covers hers, guiding her motions, deliberate, faster, her own desperate need, coming undone, Stop thinking so hard, she says, thigh slick between her legs_

" _I can't," Piper says against her open mouth, before plunging her finge-_

"There you are."

Alex blinked stupidly up at Sylvie's face, feeling that heavy sense of disorientation when you're ripped from a dream that's forgotten the instant you open your eyes. It took her a few seconds to gather herself – stretched out on the couch in the living room, Sylvie on the floor beside her, pressing a lukewarm cloth to her forehead. Somewhere in the distance, a pounding headache was biding its time and she could taste the distinct residue of vomit sticking to the inside of her mouth. There was an ache between her legs too. A fading residual of the dream world from which she was just plucked. She didn't know what to do with that information.

Sylvie lifted the cloth away from Alex's head and placed it next to a shallow bowl of water on the apothecary coffee table.

"How're you feeling?" she asked, holding three fingers to the inside of Alex's wrist.

Alex didn't respond. Didn't know how to. She watched Sylvie with mild interest. Like she was a dream too. A different one, but just as unreal, the way she stared off in the distance, doing a mental count of Alex's heartrate.

"What day is it?" Alex felt a little stupid for asking.

"Sunday."

The new information settled heavy in the pit of her stomach, and made the taste of sick in her mouth even sharper. She pushed onto her elbows.

"Aren't you supposed to be at work? What time is it?"

"Early." Sylvie replaced her arm and moved on to check each of her eyes in turn, lifting the lid and peering inside.

"Stop it." Alex shrunk away from the intrusive examination. "I'm fine." And to prove it, she pulled up to sit.

Thankfully Sylvie knew better, and was ready to ease her back onto the cushions when she flopped back down. Alex groaned through the ache in her back that had just woken up.

"Sorry," Sylvie said, reading the grimace on Alex's face. "We couldn't get you to the bedroom."

Alex's brows knotted in confusion as her mind tripped over hazy memories that were starting to take shape. Her head felt like it weighed a thousand tons, the cogs in her brain stopping and starting.

 **(Sunday, November 22** **nd** **, 2009)**

"Nicky," she said eventually, like she was taking truth for a test drive to see if it was real.

Sylvie nodded. "I sent her home a couple of hours ago. Told her I'd stay with you." Then, after a moment's consideration, added "Went against my better judgement and promised to not take you to a real doctor to have you checked out. Why would she ask me to promise a thing like that?"

"Because I'm fine."

"Is that why you didn't tell me?" Sylvie asked. "Because you're so sure that you're fine?"

Alex didn't need to ask what she was referring to. If Nicky had been there, chances were she spilled everything to Sylvie. So she just said

"I didn't want to worry you."

and left it at that.

But the look on Sylvie's face – the one that said she wasn't really buying any of it – made Alex think maybe she shouldn't leave it there, and she took up the woman's hand in her own. Gave it a reassuring squeeze.

The simple touch seemed to work, and Alex felt the rigid tension between them begin to fade. Which was good, because she didn't have the energy for another fight.

"I didn't say anything but I noticed," Sylvie spoke then, a soft hint of concern in her voice. "You haven't been yourself since you got back."

Alex said nothing.

"I figured it was the shock of what happened and that it'd pass." A sliver of silence slipped between them for a moment. Sylvie choosing her words, Alex patiently waiting for them. "And I was just so relieved you were okay, I didn't think- If there was some kind of chemical component to that explosion, Alex, it would explain your symptoms – headaches, nausea… and if you hit your head – the amnesia too."

She hadn't thought about that. Maybe because without memory of it, the attack never really happened as far as she was concerned. But Sylvie had a point. Alex took back her hand so she could try and sit up again. This time, with no point to prove, she did it slowly. Her body felt like it had been hit by a bus, but at least it stayed upright. Was it possible for biochemical weapons to wreak havoc with your body this way? The answer was yes, as far as she knew. But what about the voices? Could chemicals be behind those too? Could a chemical explosion give her memories of a whole other life? Nicky obviously hadn't told Sylvie about those.

"What do you remember about last night?" Sylvie interrupted Alex's thoughts.

She rose from her spot on the floor and sat down next to her. For a moment it looked like she wanted to reach for Alex's hand, but ended up clasping her own hands tightly in her lap instead, the memory of the fight that led her to walk out just a few hours earlier still fresh in her mind. It wasn't a good idea to forget those boundaries now. No matter how badly she wanted to.

"Bits and pieces," Alex said with a sigh, running her fingers through her hair. "I remember Nicky coming over. I was trying to make sense of that notebook-"

The notebook. All other words got stuck in her throat after that. Her head started to hurt again.

"What happened right before you got sick and passed out? Did you see something in those papers?"

Alex gave a laugh laced with frustration and maybe a little disappointment as well. The idea that her voice could make that sound set her even more on edge. She'd never heard it do that before.

"How can something I don't understand have any kind of effect on me?"

Despite her silent promise to keep a good distance, Sylvie placed a sympathetic hand on Alex's back in gentle strokes of support. "Nicky said you seemed upset."

"Of course I was upset." And remembering that made her feel it all over again. The frustration at finding page after page filled with an array of numbers and symbols that made no sense.

Alex stood up, the sudden change in equilibrium – in both her emotions and position – making her head swim. She gave herself a second to steady out and then, pacing the length in front of the couch, said

"I was so sure I'd find something in there that'll point me in the right direction. I thought that maybe finding who I was with that night…" She stopped mid-pace and stared over Sylvie's head, at the jumble of notes still strewn all over the kitchen counter. "There isn't a person I know who can do something like that," she said, waving her hand in the general direction of the kitchen.

"If you want, I could ask one of the doctors at the clinic if they maybe know-"

"No," Alex brushed her aside with more than a little irritation. "It's not about what it says, it's about what it means…"

She purposely didn't say that she wanted to be the one to make the connection. That if there was any meaning to be found, she wanted to be the one to find it. Why this little detail was so important to her, Alex couldn't say. But that was how she felt.

"Maybe there's no connection. Have you thought about that?" And now it seemed Sylvie's patience was also slipping, her tone taking on an edge of irritation. "Maybe you just grabbed the wrong bag in all the confusion, and now you think it means something it doesn't. Nicky says-"

"I don't care what Nicky says." Alex rounded on her at the same moment a shrill ringing filled up the apartment, cutting short the temper that was about to flare up.

She didn't need them to understand, and she certainly didn't need them telling her over and over how wrong she was. Because even though it didn't look like it, she had a strong feeling that everything she needed to know was right under her nose. Not getting it right away didn't mean the answers weren't there.

The ringing persisted, and Sylvie pushed up from the couch with a heavy sigh.

"It's yours," she said, "Again." And went for the source of the ringing, hidden somewhere in the mess on the kitchen counter. "It's been going for a while, every half hour or so…" she rifled through the litter of scorched pages, "…I've been letting it go to voicemail." She added this last bit as a kind of peace offering. The girlfriend who didn't snoop around her partner's phone. She wondered if Alex picked up on it.

Finally she emerged with the cell phone just as the ringing stopped, and made her way to the living room.

"Seven missed calls, all from the same guy." She frowned at the notifications on the screen. "Who's Peter?" she asked as innocently as she could, holding out the phone to Alex.

Her hand felt like lead as she moved to take it, schooling her features to remain as neutral as possible. Because Alex suddenly remembered something else she'd done the previous night. Because it wasn't entirely true that she didn't know the kind of people who could decode those pages of complex symbols.

She knew one.

 _ **/**_

 _ **March, 2014 – Maine**_

 _ **/**_

 _The letters are addressed to Miss H Vasiliev. A long, careful scrawl. Always in black against a crisp white envelope. The name is the identity arranged by one of Nicky's contacts. It gets her a job so she can get by wherever she is, and keeps her under any kind of radar. Not real, but the writing in those letters is all too real. There are pages upon pages of that careful scrawl. It usually starts with concern – that she is okay, that she is eating enough, that she is getting out every now and again, and that she is careful when she does. Then come pages of current events, latest epiphanies, sometimes work, always life without her – Helene – whom the writer continues to miss, and whose return the writer continues to hope for. It is always signed simply X, which could be read as an effort to keep the writer's name a mystery. Or a kiss._

 _Alex reads it as a kiss._

 _She has been gone 97 days and changed her location twice. She cannot count the number of times she has demanded the letters stop. Usually on days when she was particularly depressed. When it became clear that she would not be able to keep up the charade for much longer. On those days the odds against them were insurmountable. The act of just moving on made the most sense. But the only thing that stopped was her demands. Because it soon became clear there was no moving on. For either of them. And if Alex were honest with herself, she was happier for it. It gave her a purpose. Instead of simply running and hiding, she was now trying to find a way out._

 _Now on her third trip to the row of post boxes outside Tabitha's Tasties, she is filled with the same excitement as if it were the first time back in Chicago. Or the times after that in Vancouver. Word from home. From Piper._

 _She lives for it. That feeling._

 _Heart pounding as she turns the key, fingers trembling ever so slightly as she pulls the single letter from its enclave and shoves it into her jeans pocket without so much as a glance. Not wanting to waste any of that precious indulgence out on the street. She will study every single detail later. Her aim is to get back inside the safety of the one-bedroomed apartment she has called home for the past 20 days. Draw the curtains, pour a stiff drink, then settle onto her couch. Sometimes she lights a candle, puts on some Joni. Makes a deal of it. Sometimes the front door is barely locked before she's ripping into it, desperate to devour Piper's words._

 _Alex comes up to the post boxes with her beanie pulled low, and casually glances around. The lingering Maine winter is doing well to keep the sidewalks free of pedestrians, and although she seems to be quite alone, she suddenly can't shake the feeling that she's being watched. Her eyes are drawn to the large windows of Tabitha's that look out on the street. The café is in the middle of its Saturday lunch rush, brimming with people who can see out, while she can't exactly see in thanks to the glare of the afternoon sun on the glass. It occurs to her then that she most likely is being watched, but probably in that uninterested way that people acknowledge passersby when they're waiting for their order to arrive. If there was any real danger – if the man who wants her dead was the one watching – well, she needed to believe that her instincts would serve her better than a slight feeling of unease. No. This was probably nothing more than her paranoia._

 _Still, the feel of the gun pressed tightly against her back is more reassuring than usual._

 _She pulls off her thick wool gloves and shoves them into one jacket pocket, before fishing the small key from the other one. Fingers already shaking somewhat. Breath coming fast in misted plumes of anticipation. All thoughts of imminent death pushed to the back of her mind to make space for more important thoughts of Piper. Of all the things she will have packed into her most recent correspondence. The little red door squeaks on its hinges as she pulls it open, and for a moment she just stands there, feeling nothing, seeing nothing. Then she's seeing nothing – because the post box is empty – but feeling something. An instant certainty that settles deep inside her. She has been postponed. Or worse – forgotten. The idea makes an acrid taste of bile burn up in her throat. Is this how things begin to end?_

" _Hey."_

 _The sudden sound of a voice so close startles her and Alex whirls around, one hand instinctively going for the bulge under the back of her jacket. But she doesn't pull it out. Just stands there staring. Her lashes are wet as she blinks at the familiar face that doesn't belong there._

" _It's my brother's," Piper says, self-consciously tugging at the Red Sox baseball cap she's wearing, completely misreading the look on Alex's face. "I didn't have much in the way of incognito gear and left in a hurry, so-"_

 _Alex knocks the rest of her words clean flat with the force of her embrace. Locking her arms tightly around her waist in case she's a hallucination and this was how you made hallucinations real. She breathes her in and is indescribably happy to find her the complete opposite of imagination. Smelling just the same as when she left her 97 days ago. Feeling like home. Mumbling into her neck about missing her and needing to see her and not to be mad._

 _But of all the emotions filling her up in that moment, mad isn't one of them. How could it be? Because she's holding onto Piper for real and real beats a letter any day, and she hasn't been postponed_

 _or forgotten._

 **/**

 **Sunday, November 22** **nd** **, 2009**

 **/**

A partial snapshot of a baked page with the comment: I need another favor. Alex.

That was the message she had sent to Piper. There was barely a memory of it – most of her evening after getting the first few pages from the oven and Nicky's arrival was still a gaping black hole. But the evidence was right there on her phone, so Alex knew it was real. And seeing the evidence of how badly Piper was trying to get in touch, gave her a renewed sense of urgency in the matter. She had gently ushered Sylvie out of the apartment with a vague explanation about Peter being a potential client, and yes, she would be careful not to take on too much with work, no, she still didn't think a doctor was necessary, but yes, she would be sure to rest some more and would definitely call if she needed anything. There was no chance of rest, and definitely no intention of calling on Sylvie again soon. She had just stepped out of the shower when Piper called again. This time it wasn't missed. She had questions, Alex wanted to answer them face to face, so they decided to meet up in the Garden.

/

The afternoon sun glinted off the lagoon in blinding silver flares that wreaked havoc with her first few shots. Alex had initially taken the old DSLR as a prop, so she didn't look like she was just standing around on a bridge, waiting, being eaten alive by her anxiety. But Fall was showing off with what was sure to be its final farewell before winter set in, with a pleasantly mild day that had the Garden and the people in it absolutely basking. She adjusted the camera's settings and tried again, aiming for the large willow on the left bank of the lagoon. For someone who made a career of taking photos, she seemed pretty rusty at executing the shot. But Alex persisted. From her vantage point she had a sprawling view of the park, but it was the willow she wanted. Shrouded beneath its drooping sheath was a young couple. Ignorant of their surroundings, only interested in time as a way to count the moments between a touch, a kiss, a gentle caress meant for no-one else. The dappled sunlight peeking through the branches was the only other presence allowed in their sanctuary, and it created a breathtaking shot. Felt like she was stealing a little of that uncomplicated love for herself. Somewhere in the back of her mind was something that felt like that kind of love, although she couldn't quite put her finger on it.

Alex slowed her breathing and focused her lens, feeling a twinge of exhilaration at being an uninvited guest beneath that tree. She waited. The light would sway in, and then out, and then back in… she snapped at the perfect moment, and lowered the camera without reviewing the picture. She knew she nailed it.

"Who're you spying on?"

Alex turned to see Piper approaching from the one end of the bridge and just like that, the private moment she was in got all tangled up on itself.

She looked good in blue jeans, a plain white button-down shirt, and a cheeky grin. It wasn't that she was trying excessively hard, but more the fact that Piper was the kind of woman who didn't need to try. It was the simple act of not trying, and still looking so goddam good that made Alex take a deep steadying breath as she watched her draw closer.

"Not spying," she replied, once Piper got close enough, and lifted the camera dangling around her neck to take a candid snap of the woman. She pictured that face on the wall in her bedroom and suddenly felt a rush of warmth travel from her legs all the way up.

"This is nice," Piper said, sounding impressed as she reached out to feel the soft leather of Alex's jacket. "Looks vintage."

Feeling suddenly flustered, Alex took a step back – out of reach of Piper's seeming disregard for boundaries – and busied herself by fitting the lens cap on the camera. She didn't know whether the jacket was vintage or not, and felt strangely awkward now that Piper had drawn attention to the thing she'd only decided on a whim to wear out. It was a perfect fit, and being one of the items from the backpack, Alex followed the line of reasoning that if her mind was distracted enough, wearing the leather jacket might jump start a lost memory or something. So far it hadn't.

"Do you have it?" Piper asked, getting straight to the point. "I have to admit your message had me intrigued. Congrats on the new phone, by the way. How's the girlfriend?"

Alex shook her head and laughed softly. It always felt like Piper was saying so many things at once – the actual words out of her mouth, and the layers of meaning underneath. If you weren't on your toes around this one, you'd get knocked flat down. Alex liked it.

"Yes, I have it," Alex said, "and the girlfriend's fine."

"So she's still in the picture then?"

"Yes," Alex bit back a smile.

"Does she know you're meeting hot girls in parks?"

This time Alex had to laugh, feeling a slight flush in her cheeks, enjoying the shameless flirting more than she should.

"No, she doesn't." And she fixed on Piper's playful gaze with an arched eyebrow. "Now can you quit giving me a hard time and get on with it?"

"Where's the fun in that?" Piper said with a smile. "But I'll pause for just a second to ask you how you got your hands on some of the most intricate math I've ever seen."

Choosing to have the work speak for itself, Alex pulled from her pocket the discolored note she'd grabbed at random from her kitchen counter.

Piper eyed the page suspiciously. "Why is it burned?"

Feeling a little stupid in hindsight about her methods, Alex said "It's not burned, it's just… baked… a little- Just look at it and tell me if it means anything to you."

Piper finally took the note from her, her eyes studying the scribbles with intense interest.

Alex also did some studying of her own… of the adorable little crease between her perfect brows, the straight line of concentration her mouth made, the little dimple just above the cupid's bow of her upper lip… She thought about how it would feel to s-

"You're staring."

Alex quickly tried to drag her mind from the gutter, but it snagged on something while it was in there. Something familiar that made her hesitate.

Piper cocked her head, considering her thoughtfully. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"I don't know," she said honestly, still looking at her with interest. "It's stupid, but I think I had a dream about you."

"Oh really?" And there was that tone again…

Piper's face broke into a wide smile and Alex instantly regretted saying anything. Why was it so easy to forget her guard around her?

"Shut up. It's nothing. What does it say?" she asked, trying to bring the focus back to the page in Piper's hand.

Piper tucked the piece of paper safely behind her back. "So… what were we doing in this dream of yours?"

"I don't remember."

"Liar."

"Can we move on, please?" Alex worked hard not to mirror Piper's smile. That she may be enjoying this would give the blonde too much satisfaction.

And no, she didn't remember anything about any dream, but she had a pretty good idea of what the details of that dream would have looked like. The flush in her cheeks deepened.

"Was it dirty?" Piper had moved in close and her voice was low, creating an instant bubble between them and the rest of the world. "It was, wasn't it? It's all over your face."

Alex was pretty sure she'd never felt her heart skip a beat before that day.

"I don't remember," she repeated, but it was a struggle to get the words out without betraying what she was feeling. Even more of a struggle to not act on those feelings, now that Piper was standing so close and they were all alone in the world.

And then Piper backed off. Just as suddenly as she had intruded on the careful boundary between them. Either convinced that she wasn't going to get more details from Alex, or bored with the game she had started.

"Are you going to tell me where you got this?" she asked, waving the piece of paper.

Alex pursed her lips, considering how much she should share. Piper spoke again before she could make up her mind.

"I'd put my money on quantum mechanics," she said, taking up the writing again. "Really intricate. I may even be a little jealous. But…"

"But…?" Alex pressed, when Piper's thought just hung there unfinished.

The blonde looked up then. "Where's the rest of it?"

Alex bit down on her lip. "Why? Can't you tell from-"

"I can tell," she interrupted. "But this isn't everything, so it's hard to make a definitive conclusion. It looks like I'm reading a messed up working of Bennett's basic theory, and whoever wrote this was trying to…" She gave a slight shake of the head. "It's insane. Poetic."

"You think it's like a secret code for a- a poem or something?" Alex felt way out of her depth. She had no clue about Bennett or any theory and really just wished Piper could speak to her in plain English.

"If this is what I think it is… what it looks like…" Again, Piper let the unfinished thought just hang there, her eyes continuing to graze up and down the page in some kind of studious trance.

"What does it look like? What do you think it is?" Alex felt like she could crawl out of her skin with anticipation.

Piper sighed a heavy sigh, and then folded the piece of paper neatly before stowing it in her back pocket.

"Please tell me I'm not John Smith," she said.

"What?" Alex felt like she was upside down on an out-of-control carousel, being flipped this way and that like a boneless ragdoll. "What are you talking about?"

"The girlfriend," Piper said. Alex rolled her eyes. "She doesn't know you're here, which means she probably doesn't know you have my number. And that means you probably have my contact saved under a different name. I'm guessing it's a guy's name."

"Oh my god. You're unbelievable." Alex grabbed her head so her hands wouldn't spontaneously wrap around Piper's throat.

"I'm just saying, I hope you were more creative than John Smith. I deserve better."

"Is it impossible for you to deal with one thing at a time?"

"I get bored easily," she said with a shrug, "but I'm right though, aren't I? About the fake name?"

Alex looked at her without saying anything, feeling a little like she was caught in the crosshairs of Piper's sniper aim, with no option of an escape. She had no choice but to be swept along the random current of the woman's ever-changing train of thought. It was too frustrating to fight it. Better to follow the flow and see where she ended up. Hopefully it would be back at the reason she was there in the first place.

"Or Bob," Piper said. "I don't think I could bear being a Bob. Now Hank on the other hand…"

"Oh please," Alex scoffed, finally playing it her way. "You could never pull off Hank."

"Well you bviously haven't seen me dance," Piper replied without missing a beat.

This set Alex laughing despite herself, and a realization came to her as Piper joined in – that every bad thing going on in her life was the reason behind her, standing there on that bridge, feeling honestly good. Maybe it wasn't the worst idea to let up on the tight-fisted urgency to control everything. Maybe things would work out the way they should if she just stopped fighting so damn hard for them to work out. And maybe getting to the answers didn't have to be total misery. If Piper was involved, maybe it could be fun.

"What are you doing for Thanksgiving?" Piper asked then, the laughter simmering down.

Again, the sudden change of tack made Alex's mind stumble a little, but she was getting used it and only needed a second before replying.

"I guess I'm with my mom," she said, remembering the reason for her trip back home.

"There's a mom?" Piper asked, sounding delighted at the little tidbit of personal information from Alex.

"There's a mom. And a girlfriend," she added for no other reason than to mess with Piper.

"How sweet," Piper said, with a stiff smile. Alex gave herself a mental pat on the back for that one. "Anyway, my lab team's doing a thing so we can debrief after our respective family dinners."

"Doing a thing?" Alex eyed her curiously.

Piper gave a smile that softened her eyes and made Alex need to reach out and grab hold of the railing beside her. She made it look as natural as she could.

"Yes, and you should come. Without the girlfriend. Mom's fine if you think she'll be okay with a bunch of queers who are bottom line amazing but randomly offensive with questionable tastes in music and fashion."

"I don't know..." Alex was hesitant.

"Say yes and I promise I won't show you any of my dance moves."

"It's that bad?"

"Try that good," Piper replied with a laugh. "I don't want you falling in love with me just yet."

"No," Alex said with a soft smile, "we wouldn't want that." She felt warm all over.

Piper seemed pretty happy with herself. "Here," she said, digging in her back pocket for something and after a second, was unfolding a bright yellow flyer that she held out to Alex. "All the details are there."

Alex moved slowly to take it, suddenly unsure of anything so official that it called for a flyer. "I thought you said it was just your lab team."

"Relax. Only the same handful of people ever show up. It's a shame, really, the amount of trees that have to die for our overblown egos."

Alex looked at the flyer – the 90s was alive and well in the WordArt font advertising a post-Thanksgiving pick-me-up at some address in Cambridge. According to the blurb, there was going to be an open bar and an amateur DJ.

"I don't know…" she found herself repeating. "I don't think I'll be any good around people."

"What people?" Piper asked. "I'll be keeping you all to myself. You'll be safe, I promise." Alex didn't look like she was going to budge. "Come on. I'm the girl of your dreams, apparently. You can't say no to me."

Alex chuckled. She deserved that. Served her right for opening her big mouth in the first place. Of course Piper wouldn't let her forget it any time soon.

"Fine," she said. "Tell me what's going on with that piece of paper and I'll think about it."

"I'll tell you, but then it's a definite yes to Thanksgiving, plus everything else you've got on the physicist," Piper presented her counter-offer without hesitation.

But Alex's brain caught on the last part of her bargain. "Physicist?"

"Mm-hmm. So are you in?"

"I don't know any physicists," Alex ignored Piper's question. All games forgotten. "Besides you…" She was starting to think that maybe Sylvie and Nicky were right. Maybe she really was chasing after something that had nothing to do with her.

"Well get me the rest of it," Piper said, picking up on the dismay clouding Alex's features. "I'll figure it out, and with the list of names from the flash sale, I'm sure it'll clear things up. I'll help you," she ended, with a reassuring squeeze to Alex's arm.

Alex didn't feel so sure about things becoming clear all of a sudden, but she appreciated the effort Piper was making, and it felt good being touched by her.

"Peter," she said, fidgeting with the flyer, avoiding eye contact.

"What?"

"My phone," Alex said. "That's the name I gave you." She still wasn't looking, and so didn't see the huge smile that lit up Piper's face.

"Well, it's no Hank, but I can live with that," Piper said. Only then taking back her hand so she could fold the burned note and stow it in the same pocket she had pulled the flyer from. "You okay?"

Alex nodded briefly, stunned by the ease with which Piper could shift between teasing and plain sincerity, and how blatantly she found herself responding to either. She felt Piper's gaze on her and looked up.

"Why do I get the feeling that's not entirely true?" Piper asked.

Alex laughed softly, sadly, and shrugged. She'd been asked that question – Are you okay? – so many times in the past few days, saying yes was the easy answer. It usually got the person off her back. Should she be surprised that it hadn't worked with Piper? Probably not. This virtual stranger had proven her unsettling intuition a few times in two very short meetings.

"I'll be fine," Alex said. _You're going to be fine_ that now familiar voice whispered in the back of her head. She pursed her lips to keep a steady expression. It wasn't exactly a great time to be hearing voices. "And I'll see you Thursday," she added, folding the flyer and moving to slip it into the inside pocket of her jacket. She waited tensely for the voice to come again, but it didn't, and she relaxed. "I don't think I'll bring my mom, but I'll give you the rest of-" Her sentence broke off as her hand brushed against something else in her pocket.

Had she not gone through everything when inspecting the garment before? She could've sworn she'd turned that backpack and its contents inside out, but clearly she hadn't or she would've found it days ago.

"What is it?" Piper asked off the puzzled expression on Alex's face.

Alex didn't respond. Releasing the flimsy flyer, her fingers groped for the smooth, padded something in there and pulled it out. She stared down at the lazy scrawl – black against the crisp white envelope – and her mouth went dry, her entire body numb. Her fingers felt nothing as she ran them over the writing that made fine indentations on the paper. It said simply 'Alex'.

 _I needed a way to keep you from him_ She closed her eyes and staggered back to lean against the railing. Forced herself to swallow even though it grated her dry throat. To breathe even though her lungs were closing up. Sylvie had asked her about the cause of her blackout. _I believe the amnesia's temporary_ What was it that made her sick and pass out, she'd asked. Alex couldn't tell her then because she didn't remember. But was that the truth? _I love you, Alex_ And the dream. The one she thought of when Piper showed up on that bridge. Was it true she didn't remember that either? _I'll be right behind you_

"Alex?"

When she opened her eyes again she was staring right into Piper's alarmed expression. She'd come around to stand in front of her, both hands resting on Alex's shoulders.

"Do you need to sit down?" Piper tried again. "What's happening?"

Alex said nothing. Her mind was too full to get any words out. Her chest felt as though it would burst. Because she knew. It was all there. What happened right before she'd blacked out, what her dream was about, where she was before waking up in her childhood bedroom a few days ago... It was all there. She remembered all of it.

From every timeline.

"Pipes?" she said, and collapsed.

 _ **/**_

 _ **March, 2014 – Maine**_

 _ **/**_

 _They had spent the hours eating and drinking and making love. Or rather, making love and taking occasional breaks to satisfy their other, less pressing needs. It was well after midnight when Piper finally revealed the reason behind her surprise visit over a half-eaten slice of pizza. That is wasn't just a visit. That she had taken leave from her work to focus on a more urgent project. And that she had no intention of going back. The conversation that followed was enough to put a damper on the starved-out lust that had driven them through the day. Reality seeping into their bubble. It wasn't an argument exactly, more Alex trying to wrap her head around something she couldn't understand, and Piper not doing very much to help her. She didn't have all the details yet. It was a work in progress. But it was completely feasible in theory, a way, Piper said, for Alex to stop running for good, for them to be together, like normal people. To be free from the inevitability of Kubra and his vengeance once and for all. What about Piper's work? People they'd both be leaving behind? What about all of it? It doesn't matter, Piper had said. You say that now, Alex had replied. But what if you wake up one day and realize you resent me for it? That you gave up everything for nothing? I won't, Piper had said, because I love you. You can't, Alex had argued. She didn't want Piper to throw away everything for the chaos of a life she was stuck with. Too late, Piper had said. And she wasn't throwing anything away, she was fighting for something bigger than all of it. Alex thought it was crazy. Insane. Impossible. Maybe for you it's all those things, Piper had said, but for me... it's just an equation._


End file.
